!•»  TALES  OF 
WARTIME  FRANCE 


TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 


TALES 
OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

BY 
CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  WRITERS 

Illustrating  the  Spirit  of 
the  French  People  at  War 

TRANSLATED  BY 
WILLIAM  L.  McPHERSON 

WITH  FOREWORD  BY 
FREDERIC  R.  COUDERT 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1918 


Copyright,   1918 
By  DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY,  Inc. 


FOREWORD 

To  us  Americans  France  has  become  almost  a  mystic 
word,  carrying  with  it  a  picture  of  suffering  and  heroism. 
The  Marne  and  Verdun  stand  out  as  the  great  "  check 
battles  "  of  the  modern  world,  where  the  oldest  and  most 
sympathetic  of  European  peoples  again,  after  an  interval 
of  centuries,  stopped  the  inroad  of  a  new  and  more  terri- 
ble barbarism;  that  in  which  brutish  appetite  is  served  by 
all  the  devices  of  modern  science. 

The  great  lines  of  the  conflict  we  all  know.  They  are 
revealed  to  us  by  the  daily  press  and  contemporary  his- 
tory. These  are  the  broad  outlines  of  the  story,  but  there 
is  much  more  to  the  picture  that  we  do  not  see  and  that 
the  imagination  can  scarce  conjure  —  the  simple  devotion 
of  obscure  persons,  the  silent  suffering  of  little  children, 
the  long  agony  of  the  women  in  the  invaded  districts,  the 
quiet  heroism  of  the  humble  folk  whose  names  will  never 
adorn  the  pages  of  history.  It  is  the  recital  of  incidents 
sudi  as  are  contained  in  these  little  stories  that  reveals  to 
us  the  very  soul  of  France  itself,  as  it  can  be  revealed  in 
no  formal  oration  or  state  document. 

When  a  poor  refugee  woman  whose  home  had  been 


2031070 


vi  FOREWORD 

burned  and  invalid  husband  done  to  death,  in  reply  to 
my  query  as  to  whether  she  had  any  children,  answered 
simply,  that  the  Lord  had  at  least  spared  her  that  added 
suffering,  I  realized  as  I  never  otherwise  could  what  the 
Hun  invasion  really  meant. 

When  little  children  who  had  returned  to  the  wrecked 
villages  in  Lorraine,  with  their  mothers,  to  aid  in  culti- 
vating the  rescued  soil  of  France,  showed  me  the  place 
where  they  had  seen  "  Grandpere  shot,"  one  felt  that  such 
children  could  never  be  quite  like  the  others. 

French  literary  skill  of  the  highest  order  has  been  em- 
ployed in  depicting  these  incidents  of  the  war  with  a 
pathos  and  power  scarce  equalled  in  history.  The  writ- 
ers, in  many  cases  soldiers  or  participants  in  the  scenes 
which  they  describe,  have  been  able  to  interpret  with  that 
insight  and  power  so  native  to  the  French  mind,  these 


The  Tribune  has  rendered  a  real  service  in  publishing 
an  admirable  translation  of  some  of  these  little  master- 
pieces, which  must  otherwise  have  escaped  the  attention 
of  the  American  reader.  One  derives  from  them  some 
idea  of  what  the  sacrifice  has  meant  to  France,  how  it 
has  been  borne,  and  what  multiple  forms  it  has  taken. 
Who  can  ever  forget  Daudet's  stories  of  the  invasion  of 
1870?  "La  Derniere  Classe"  leaves  an  indelible  im- 
pression of  the  continued  tragedy  of  Alsace. 

One  rises  from  the  reading  of  the  stories  in  this  book 


FOREWORD  vii 

with  a  profound  sense  of  the  "  pity  of  it  all,"  tempered 
only  by  the  thought  that  our  own  America  has  really 
understood  and  will  persevere  to  the  end  —  that  all  this 
Calvary  shall  not  have  been  in  vain! 

FREDERIC  R.  COUDERT. 
New  York,  Feb.  20,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

FOREWORD.     Frederic  R.   Coudert  v 

INTRODUCTION xi 

BY  ALFRED  MACHARD 

PAGE 

REPATRIATION 1 

BY  MAURICE  LEVEL 

UNDER  ETHER  (1918) 7 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE 13 

AT  THE  MOVIES 24 

THE  LITTLE  SOLDIER  (1918) 30 

THE  GREAT  SCENE 36 

AFTER  THE  WAR 42 

BY  FREDERIC  BOUTET 

THE  MESSENGER 48 

THE  CONVALESCENT'S  RETURN 54 

THE  MEDALLION 59 

THE  PROMISE 65 

BY  PIERRE  MILLE 

How  THEY  Do  IT 70 

THE  APOLOGUE  OF  KADIR  BAKCH  ....  78 

THE  MAN  WHO  WAS  AFRAID   ......  83 

THE  SOLDIER  WHO  CONQUERED  SLEEP    ...  90 
is 


x  CONTENTS 

BY  MME.  LUCIE  DELARUE-MADRUS 

PAGE 

THE  GODMOTHER 97 

THE  GODMOTHER  II 103 

THE  RED  ROSE 109 

THE  RIVALS 115 

BY  RENE  BENJAMIN 

**  IN  A  ROADSTEAD  OF  FRANCE 121 

THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  HEROISM 128 

THE  HINDOO  COMMISSARIAT 134 

BY  JEAN  AICARD 

*  MARIETTE'S  GIFT 142 

ANONYMOUS 

THE  SONATA  TO  THE  STAR 153 

*  THE  PIPE 160 

*  THE  RENDEZVOUS 167 

*  THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CHURCH  BELL    ....  173 
THE  SACRIFICE 180 

**  THE  SLACKER  WITH  A  SOUL 188 

*  THE  EVOCATION 195 

***  Triple  starred  (the  highest  excellence)  in  Edward  J. 
O'Brien's  "Best  Short  Stories"  of  1916  and  1917. 

**  Double  starred  (the  next  highest  standard)  in  "Best  Short 
Stories "  of  1916  and  1917. 

*  Single  starred  (the  next  highest  standard  of  excellence)  in 
"  Best  Short  Stories  "  of  1916  and  1917. 


INTRODUCTION 

These  translations  first  appeared  in  the  Sunday  issues 
of  the  New  York  Tribune,  in  1916-'18,  and  the  trans- 
lator's thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  Ogden  Reid,  Editor-in-Chief 
of  the  Tribune,  for  permission  to  republish  them  in 
book  form. 

The  series  had  a  double  purpose.  It  was  intended,  in 
the  first  place,  to  furnish  each  week  a  worth  while  piece 
of  fiction  —  notable  in  literary  quality  and  also  illus- 
trating the  experiences  and  emotional  reactions  of  a  na- 
tion at  war.  The  war  has  profoundly  affected  French 
life  and  thought.  Four  years  of  endurance  and  sacri- 
fice have  therefore  left  their  impress  on  French  litera- 
ture; and  in  no  field  of  letters  is  their  impress  more 
noticeable  than  in  the  field  of  the  short  story  —  a  field 
in  which  French  writers  have  always  excelled.  As  a 
vehicle  for  the  expression  of  the  mood  and  temper  of  a 
people  in  time  of  stress  the  French  short  story  has  taken 
on  since  1914  new  flexibility  and  power. 

It  was  the  translator's  purpose,  in  the  second  place,  to 
stimulate  American  interest  in  the  French  short  story 
writers  of  today,  who  have  gotten  so  close  to  the  real 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

spirit  of  France.  America  and  France  are  drawing  to- 
gether again.  New  ties  of  friendship  and  intimacy  are 
being  formed  and  Americans  are  beginning  to  feel  that 
in  working  toward  a  better  knowledge  of  France  and  the 
French  they  are  building  intelligently  for  the  future. 
We  are  sending  hundreds  of  thousands  of  soldiers  to 
fight  on  French  soil.  Nearly  every  American  household 
has  a  relative  or  friend  either  in  France  or  on  the  way 
there,  and  our  interest  in  the  people,  the  language,  the 
mental  outlook  and  the  culture  with  which  we  as  a  nation 
are  now  coming  into  the  closest  contact  is  being  stimu- 
lated as  it  never  has  been  before,  or  ever  could  have 
been,  by  polite  but  formal  exchanges  of  friendly  senti- 
ments between  the  Governments  of  the  two  republics,  by 
a  century  old  sense  of  gratitude  to  our  generous  ally  in 
the  Revolutionary  War,  or  by  occasional  after-dinner 
evocations  of  the  shades  of  Washington  and  Lafayette. 
Before  this  war  ends  a  new  American-French  Alliance 
will  be  cemented.  It  will  bring  a  rapprochement  in 
thought  and  understanding,  in  which  a  wider  cultivation 
of  French  literature  in  this  country  will  undoubtedly 
play  an  important  part.  This  book  is  intended  to  be  a 
contribution  to  such  a  rapprochement. 

The  stories  contained  in  this  volume  will  introduce 
to  the  American  reading  public,  writers  most  of  whom 
have  come  to  the  fore  with  the  war.  Take  a  volume  of 
"Qui  Etes  Vous?"  (the  French  "Who's  Who")  of  a 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

date  as  late  as  1910  (the  latest  available  in  the  New  York 
Public  Library)  and  you  will  find  in  it  no  mention  of 
Maurice  Level,  Frederic  Boutet,  Rene  Benjamin  or  Al- 
fred Machard.  Yet  these  are  the  men  who  are  doing  the 
largest  share  of  the  brilliant  fiction  of  the  war  —  fit  suc- 
cessors in  the  field  of  the  short  story  to  Daudet  and  Mau- 
passant, but  exhibiting  a  simplicity  and  breadth  of  feel- 
ing in  which  those  more  sophisticated  and  more  purely 
literary  masters  were  somewhat  deficient. 

You  will  find,  of  course,  in  the  French  "  Who's  Who  " 
Jean  Aicard,  one  of  the  oldest  of  The  Immortals,  now 
past  his  seventieth  year,  poet,  dramatist  and  novelist,  a 
venerable  figure  in  the  literary  world  of  Paris.  He  has 
written  the  charming  war  pastoral,  "  Mariette's  Gift." 

You  will  also  find  Mme.  Lucie  Delarue-Madrus,  four 
of  whose  stories  appear  in  this  collection.  She  is  a  poet, 
novelist  and  dramatist,  who  made  her  reputation  before 
the  war.  She  has  turned  to  writing  short  war  stories 
delicately  finished  and  full  of  poetic  imagination.  "  The 
Rivals "  is  a  good  example  of  her  graver  style.  The 
other  three  stories,  which  deal  with  a  unique  French 
war  institution  —  the  godmother  to  the  poilus  —  are  in 
a  lighter  and  more  sparkling  vein.  All  of  them  show  the 
dexterity  of  a  highly  trained  writer. 

Pierre  Mille  had  also  an  established  literary  reputation 
in  the  period  before  the  war.  He  is  fifty-four  years  old 
and  has  had  a  brilliant  career  as  an  author  and  journalist. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

In  his  younger  days  he  was  a  bureau  chief  in  the  French 
Secretariat  General  of  Madagascar  and  was  sent  on  vari- 
ous official  missions  to  West  Africa,  the  Congo,  Indo- 
China  and  British  India.  His  book  on  the  Belgian 
Congo,  "Au  Congo  Beige,"  published  in  1899,  was 
crowned  by  the  Academy.  He  was  the  correspondent  of 
"  Le  Journal  des  Debats  "  in  the  Greco-Turkish  War  of 
1897,  and  has  written  extensively  for  "  Le  Journal,"  "  Le 
Petit  Journal,"  "  Le  Temps,"  "  La  Revue  de  Paris  "  and 
"  La  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes." 

His  short  stories  have  both  finish  and  virility.  He  is 
equally  at  home  writing  about  colonials,  Arabs,  or  negro 
fighters  from  Senegal;  about  Greeks  or  Serbians;  about 
French  poilus  or  British  soldiers  —  and  these  last  are 
certainly  a  final  test  of  the  equipment  of  any  French 
writer.  Mille  has  imagination,  clarity  and  humour. 
The  four  stories  which  are  included  in  this  volume  show 
him  in  different  moods.  But  from  all  of  them  one  gets 
an  impression  of  intellectual  vigour  and  high  technical 
proficiency. 

In  the  group  of  newer  authors  Maurice  Level  is  repre- 
sented by  the  largest  number  of  stories.  His  fertility  is 
remarkable.  And  the  average  quality  of  his  work  is  very 
high.  Level  has  a  style  something  like  that  of  de  Mau- 
passant. It  is  brusque,  concise,  stripped  of  all  impedi- 
ments. It  wastes  no  words  and  pushes  breathlessly  to 
the  climax.  Its  virility  and  dramatic  force  are  best 


INTRODUCTION 


xv 


illustrated  in  "  Under  Ether,"  "  At  the  Movies,"  and 
"  The  Spirit  of  Alsace."  "  After  the  War  "  is  playfully 
sardonic.  "  The  Great  Scene  "  has  a  hard  and  technical 
brilliancy.  On  the  contrary  "  The  Little  Soldier  "  is  en- 
gagingly tender  and  poetic.  Compactness  in  form,  sim- 
plicity in  manner  and  an  unerring  eye  for  the  denoue- 
ment are  Level's  chief  virtues. 

Frederic  Boutet  is  almost  as  prolific  as  Level.  He 
covers  a  wide  range  in  his  choice  of  subjects,  but  his 
manner  is  singularly  consistent.  He  creates  an  atmos- 
phere of  his  own.  In  his  best  stories  there  is  a  peculiar 
charm  of  sobriety.  Like  Level,  he  is  a  master  in  the 
terse  and  compact  expression  of  an  idea,  feeling  or  situa- 
tion. But,  unlike  Level,  he  has  a  singular  moderation 
and  reticence  of  manner.  He  abhors  crashing  effects. 
In  speaking  of  a  volume  of  his  war  stories,  recently  pub- 
lished in  France,  the  literary  editor  of  "  L'Humanite  " 
made  this  just  and  felicitous  remark:  "  Here  one  finds 
again  the  sober  manner  of  Boutet,  who  seeks  to  produce 
his  effects  by  presenting  the  realistic  side  of  things,  not 
by  exciting  artificially  the  imagination  and  nerves  of  the 
reader." 

The  title  of  M.  Boutet's  book  was  "  Those  Who  Wait 
for  Them."  This  aptly  suggests  the  motive  of  most  of 
his  work.  He  is,  so  to  speak,  the  laureate,  not  of  the 
fighting  men  at  the  front,  but  of  those  who  stay  behind, 
but  who  nevertheless  have  their  part  in  the  war  and  its 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

emotions  and  sacrifices.  All  four  of  his  stories  in  this 
collection  concern  life  behind  the  lines.  The  sentiment 
in  them  is  grave,  delicately  refracted  and  unobtrusive. 
In  "  The  Convalescent's  Return  "  there  is  also  a  gentle 
touch  of  irony. 

If  Boutet  is  the  laureate  of  those  who  wait  at  home 
Rene  Benjamin  is  the  laureate  of  the  French  poilus.  No 
one  stands  ahead  of  him  as  a  celebrater  of  the  heroism 
and  endurance  of  the  French  soldier.  He  has  two  moods. 
In  the  first  he  is  robust,  almost  brutal,  in  his  realism. 
There  is  a  reason  for  this,  since  the  background  of  war, 
against  which  the  soldierly  virtues  stand  out,  is  undeni- 
ably brutal.  This  first  mood  is  uppermost  in  "  Gas- 
pard,"  his  war  novel.  In  the  second  mood  he  is  a  prose 
poet,  vividly  imaginative  and  almost  romantic  in  spirit. 
"In  a  Roadstead  of  France"  and  "The  Simplicity  of 
Heroism"  show  to  advantage  his  more  delicate  and  po- 
etic manner.  M.  Benjamin  has  also  written  many  ad- 
mirable war  sketches,  dealing  with  the  Allied  armies  in 
France  —  first  with  the  British  and  latterly  with  the 
American.  "The  Hindoo  Commissariat"  is  more  of  a 
sketch  than  a  story.  But  it  is  included  in  this  volume  be- 
cause of  its  limpid  style  and  imaginative  quality. 

Alfred  Machard,  whose  touching  story,  "  Repatria- 
tion," comes  first  in  this  collection,  has  shown  a  keen  ap- 
preciation of  that  part  of  the  great  war  tragedy  in  which 
children  figure.  In  this  field  it  is  easy  to  fall  into  an 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

exaggerated  vein  of  pathos.  M.  Machard  has  avoided 
that  temptation.  His  style  is  marked  by  admirable  re- 
straint. "  Repatriation "  is  one  of  the  best  examples 
of  his  vivid  but  self-controlled  and  not  over-emotional- 
ized manner. 

The  seven  anonymous  stories  included  in  the  book 
came  to  the  translator  in  reprint  form.  In  some  in- 
stances the  names  of  the  writers  may  have  been  acci- 
dentally suppressed.  Information  which  may  lead  to 
a  determination  of  authorship  in  these  cases  is  invited 
and  will  be  welcomed. 

The  translator's  confidence  in  the  unusual  quality  of 
the  stories  here  collected  has  been  strongly  confirmed  by 
the  judgment  passed  on  them  in  Mr.  Robert  J.  O'Brien's 
listings  of  the  best  short  stories  appearing  in  American 
magazines  and  periodicals  in  1916  and  1917.  Of  the 
thirty  pieces  in  this  volume  two  were  first  published  in 
1916  —  Benjamin's  "  In  a  Roadstead  of  France  "  and 
"  The  Sacrifice,"  anonymous.  Two  were  first  published 
in  1918—  Level's  "Under  Ether"  and  "The  Little 
Soldier."  Of  the  twenty-eight  which  appeared  in  1916 
and  1917  twenty-two  figured  on  Mr.  O'Brien's  honor 
roll.  Two  were  triple-starred,  three  were  double-starred 
and  fourteen  were  single  starred.  Of  the  two  triple 
starred  one  is  by  Boutet  and  one  anonymous.  Of  the 
three  double  starred  one  is  by  Level,  one  is  by  Benjamin 
and  one  is  anonymous.  Of  the  fourteen  single  starred 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

three  are  by  Level,  three  by  Boutet,  three  by  Mille,  one 
by  Machard,  one  by  Aicard  and  three  are  anonymous. 
These  notations  are  shown  in  the  table  of  contents. 
The  translator's  thanks  are  also  due  to  Mr.  O'Brien  for 
his  personal  interest  in  the  publication  in  book  form 

of  these  stories. 

WILLIAM  L.  MCPHERSON. 

Feb.  20,  1918. 


TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 


TALES  OF 
WARTIME  FRANCE 


REPATRIATION 
ALFRED  MACHARD 

FOR  more  than  twenty-four  hours  they  had  been  trav- 
elling across  Germany,  shut  in  like  animals,  in  a 
cattle  car  in  which  there  still  lingered  an  acrid  odour  of 
the  stable.  At  one  of  the  stations  where  the  train  stopped 
a  big  Prussian  had  come  in,  grumbling,  to  attach  to  the 
roof  of  the  car  a  sort  of  miner's  lamp,  with  an  open 
flame.  And  since  they  were  afraid  of  him  he  began  to 
laugh  —  with  a  cruel  laugh  which  exposed  three  whole 
teeth  and  some  blueish  tooth  stumps. 

One  of  them,  braver  or  more  resolute  than  the  others, 
went  up  to  him. 

"  Mr.  Soldier,"  she  asked,  "  in  case  one  of  us  should 
die  on  the  train,  what  would  you  do?  " 

The  Prussian  reflected  a  moment.  He  seemed  almost 
to  smile.  Then  he  extended  his  hairy  paws  and  went 
through  the  motions  of  taking  hold  of  a  corpse  and  toss- 
ing it  roughly  through  the  open  door.  No  matter  where 
1 


2          TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

—  into  the  ditch,  perhaps,  which  ran  alongside  the  rail- 
road track. 

"Bah!  I  would  do  like  that!  Ha!  ha!  Just  like 
that!  " 

And  he  appeared  to  enjoy  hugely  their  terror,  which 
expressed  itself  in  a  shivery  cry.  But  as  the  train  began 
to  move  again  he  jumped  quickly  on  the  running  board, 
pushed  the  sliding  door  to  and  padlocked  it  with  two 
turns  of  his  key. 

The  train  now  plunged  along  amid  a  thunder  of  turn- 
ing wheels. 

Then,  in  the  shadow,  the  group  of  little  girls  dissolved 
and  exposed  to  view,  on  a  bed  of  straw,  a  motionless 
and  haggard  figure,  racked  with  coughing. 

A  voice  said: 

"  It  may  be  still  far  away  —  the  frontier.  If  only  she 
doesn't  die  before  we  get  to  Switzerland.  The  Prussian 
has  said  so.  They  would  throw  her  out;  she  would  re- 
main in  Germany.  And  her  mamma  is  waiting  for  her 
at  the  railroad  station.  Her  mamma  would  not  see  her! 
Oh!  She  would  never  see  her!  " 

They  were  a  score  of  poor  little  children  from  occu- 
pied French  territory  whom  His  Majesty  William  II, 
Emperor  of  Germany  and  King  of  Prussia,  had  consented 
to  return  to  their  families  after  two  years  of  war.  It  was 
the  evening  of  the  day  before  when  they  boarded  the 
train.  They  did  not  know  one  another  then,  for  they  had 


REPATRIATION  3 

been  collected  from  all  the  corners  of  the  invaded  de- 
partments of  France.  But  no  sooner  were  they  thrown 
together,  locked  in  their  rolling  prison,  than  they  began 
to  kiss  one  another,  like  little  sisters  who  had  met  after 
a  long  separation. 

The  following  morning,  at  dawn,  little  Ginette  Pinson 
had  a  coughing  spell.  A  little  blood  on  them  had  en- 
larged her  lips,  as  paint  enlarges  those  of  an  actress,  and 
she  had  clenched  her  hands  on  her  breast  as  if  to  wrest 
from  it  the  source  of  her  suffering. 

Poor  Ginette!  She  was  nine  years  old  and  she  looked 
scarcely  six,  so  much  had  the  privations  of  life  in  the 
occupied  district  emaciated  her.  Her  cough,  becoming 
hoarser  and  shorter  all  the  time,  turned  toward  evening 
into  a  rattle,  and,  all  at  once,  just  after  the  rude  Prussian 
left  the  car,  the  last  agony  brought  a  cold  perspiration 
to  the  brow  of  the  dying  child,  choked  her  nostrils, 
turned  her  finger  nails  violet  and  forced  open  her  mouth 
in  a  last  desperate  struggle  for  breath. 

The  little  ones  scarcely  dared  to  bend  over  Ginette,  so 
much  had  the  approach  of  death  unnerved  them.  And 
yet  their  children's  eyes  had  seen  along  the  roads,  at  the 
time  of  the  flight  from  Northern  France,  many  grinning 
faces  of  corpses. 

It  was  now  completely  dark  outside.  The  wind,  which 
whistled  through  the  spaces  of  the  night,  made  the  tele- 
graph wires  sing  and  tremble.  Suddenly  Ginette  col- 


4          TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

lapsed.  She  raised  her  arms  stiffly  and  let  them  fall 
again.  Then,  her  eyes  shrinking  back  under  the  half- 
closed  lids,  she  lay  entirely  motionless. 

It  was  over. 

A  voice  cried: 

"She  is  dead!" 

They  all  shuddered. 

"Ah!     Ginette!     Ginette!  " 

The  train  slowed  down.  The  brakes  made  a  grind- 
ing sound. 

"  Maybe  we  are  there,"  said  one  of  the  children,  hope- 
fully. 

"  I  believe  that  we  are  going  to  be  a  long  time  in  Ger- 
many," said  another.  "And  if  they  come  in  they  will 
take  Ginette  away." 

"And  her  mamma!  And  her  mamma!"  sighed  a 
pitiful  voice. 

They  sobbed  as  they  thought  of  that  poor  mamma 
who  was  awaiting  down  there  in  the  night,  on  the  plat- 
form of  a  little  Swiss  station,  the  long-hoped-for  return 
of  her  daughter. 

Who  would  dare  to  tell  her: 

"Ginette  is  dead.  She  was  left  behind  in  Germany. 
The  Prussians  kept  her." 

The  train  stopped.  A  key,  outside,  scraping,  sought 
the  keyhole  of  the  padlock.  The  inspecting  officer, 
doubtless,  was  about  to  enter.  And  Ginette?  Would 


REPATRIATION  5 

they  let  Ginette  be  carried  off  by  these  accursed  Ger- 
mans? 

"And  her  mamma!     And  her  mamma!  " 

The  key  a  second  time  clicked  against  the  bolt.  Then 
a  hand  unloosed  the  padlock. 

"  Quick !  Do  as  I  say !  "  ordered  in  her  shrill  voice 
Marie  Clavet,  the  brave  little  one  who  some  hours  back 
had  dared  to  question  the  Prussian  soldier.  "  We  will 
seem  to  have  been  sleeping.  I  am  going  to  rock 
Ginette  in  my  arms.  But  don't  leave  me  alone.  You 
must  be  by  me.  I  want  to  feel  your  hands  on  me.  We 
will  arrange  ourselves  in  a  group." 

When  a  soldier  entered,  swinging  a  big  lantern  and 
lighting  the  way  for  an  officer,  they  were  all  together 
at  one  end  of  the  car,  some  seated,  others  stretched  on 
the  straw  as  if  asleep.  At  the  sound  of  footsteps  they 
appeared  to  awaken  and  sat  upright,  rubbing  their  eyes. 
They  surrounded  Marie  Clavet.  Marie  Clavet  rocked 
the  dead  girl  and  sang  to  her.  She  was  pale  and 
trembling. 

The  soldier  lifted  the  lantern.  The  officer  stumblingly 
called  the  names. 

"  Jeanne  Perceval !  " 

"  Present !  "  answered  a  frightened  voice. 

"  Emilie  Francoeur!  Georgette  Myrtil!  Pauline 
Berouard!  Marie  Louise  Gamier!  Renee  Bridelange! 
Henriette  Brindlelouc!  Ginette  Pinson!  " 


6          TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

A  long  silence. 

"  Ginette  Pinson !  "  the  officer  repeated  impatiently. 

Then  Marie  Clavet  spoke. 

"  She  is  asleep,  Monsieur.  She  has  been  sick  and  I 
am  nursing  her." 

The  soldier  stepped  forward.  The  little  girls  held 
their  breath.  Outside  there  was  a  loud  blast  from  the 
locomotive.  The  man  raised  his  lantern.  He  cast  its 
light  full  on  Marie  Clavet's  head,  her  face  bent  over 
to  throw  a  shadow  on  the  face  of  the  dead  child. 

"  Yes,  she  is  asleep,"  said  the  soldier,  rejoining  the 
officer. 

The  rollcall  continued.  When  it  was  finished  the  two 
Prussians  left  the  car.  Then  the  train,  the  whistle  blow- 
ing, slowly  crossed  the  frontier. 


UNDER  ETHER 
MAURICE  LEVEL 

Ethe  evenings,  when  the  wounded  were  asleep,  when 
Jiere  were  left  burning  in  the  halls  only  the  Argand 
lamps,  shaded  by  hoods  of  cardboard,  the  old  doctor 
used  to  take  a  little  turn  up  and  down  the  road. 

His  pipe  stuck  between  his  teeth,  he  used  to  climb 
the  little  hill,  from  which  through  the  trees  he  could 
see  the  denuded  plain,  the  villages,  whose  mutilated  pro- 
files made  strange,  sharp-drawn  figures  against  the  sky, 
and,  further  off,  St.  Quentin,  which  for  eight  days  past 
had  been  illuminated  by  the  glare  of  incendiary  fires. 

Then,  his  back  bent  forward,  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
he  watched  going  up  in  smoke  the  city  in  which  for 
twenty  years  he  had  visited  the  poor  and  the  rich  —  the 
peaceful  little  city  where  formerly  the  old  people  whom 
he  had  cared  for  and  the  children  whom  he  had  brought 
into  the  world  greeted  him  as  he  passed  by;  the  sorrow- 
ful little  city,  now  in  captivity,  where  his  mother  awaited 
him.  Now  and  then,  as  the  wind  blew  aside  the  smoke 
and  the  flames  licked  the  black  horizon,  he  would  say: 

"  It  is  the  factory  which  is  afire.     Or  maybe  it  is 
the  city  hall  —  or  the  church." 
7 


8          TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

Clenching  his  fists,  his  lips  trembling,  he  made  his 
way  back  to  the  hospital  —  older,  more  weary,  heavier 
at  heart. 

On  the  mornings  of  the  days  of  the  attacks,  when  the 
cannon  passed  at  a  gallop,  when  the  tread  of  regiments 
on  the  march  echoed  through  the  silence,  he  stole  softly 
from  his  bed  to  watch,  buoyed  with  the  hope  that  this 
time  at  last  they  were  going  to  retake  his  city;  that  he 
would  re-enter  it  and  see  there  once  more  his  old  mother, 
his  old  home  and  his  old  friends. 

But  when  he  saw  the  soldiers  coming  back,  when  the 
thunder  of  the  cannonade  slackened  and  died  away,  he 
would  sigh,  "  Not  this  time,  either,"  and  resume  his  tasks. 

One  day  when  there  had  been  sharp  fighting,  they 
brought  into  the  hospital  a  batch  of  wounded  prisoners. 
One  of  them,  a  feldwebel  (sergeant-major),  whose  shoul- 
der was  shattered  by  a  shell,  astonished  him  by  the  dig- 
nity of  his  bearing  and  the  refinement  of  his  talk.  Ex- 
amining the  wound,  he  asked  the  prisoner  in  German : 

"  Where  do  you  come  from?  " 

"  From  Magdeburg,  in  Saxony,  Monsieur  le  Medecin- 
Majeur,"  replied  the  sub-officer,  in  good  French. 

"Ah,"  said  the  doctor,  with  an  intonation  of  regret, 
for  he  had  hoped  that  the  wounded  man  was  an  Alsa- 
tian, conscripted  by  force.  The  latter  seemed  to  under- 
stand, and  murmured: 

"  What  can  you  expect,  Doctor?     War  is  war.     But 


UNDER  ETHER  9 

that  doesn't  prevent  me  from  loving  France,  where  I 
grew  up." 

Of  a  sudden  the  blood  mounted  to  the  face  of  the  old 
surgeon.  Pushing  up  his  glasses  and  looking  sternly  at 
the  prisoner,  he  hurled  at  him  this  question : 

"  And  are  you  not  ashamed  to  ravage  this  country,  to 
ruin  these  poor  people,  who  before  the  war,  received 
you  with  kindness?  " 

"Yes,"  the  other  answered  softly.  "I  am  often 
ashamed.  For  my  part  I  have  always  striven  to  be  hu- 
mane, to  be  just,  to  avoid  mistreating  anybody  and  to 
alleviate  mistreatment  by  others  as  far  as  lay  in  my 
power.  The  combat  over,  one  becomes  a  human  being 
again;  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  occupied  regions  are 
not  responsible.  Their  persons  and  their  property  ought 
to  be  sacred.  I  have  to  apologize  for  those  of  my  com- 
panions who  have  not  understood  this.  For  instance, 
my  regiment  has  been  for  the  last  six  months  at  St. 
Quentin " 

The  doctor  gave  a  start. 

"You  have  been  at  St.  Quentin  for  six  months?  I 
come  from  St.  Quentin.  Perhaps  you  can  give  me  some 
news.  Often  in  the  evenings  I  see  fires  —  now  in  one 
quarter  of  the  city,  now  in  another.  You  haven't  de- 
stroyed the  place  systematically,  have  you,  as  you  did 
Noyon,  Peronne  and  Bapaume?  " 

"  Alas,  Doctor,  that  is  a  foul  blot  on  our  arms." 


10        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  But,"  pursued  the  surgeon,  his  voice  almost  choked, 
"  you  have  been  burning  only  public  buildings,  haven't 
you?  Not  private  houses?  " 

"  No ;  the  private  houses  are  practically  untouched  up 
to  now." 

"Ah!     Do  you  know  a  street  called  Beffroi  Street?  " 

"  I  know  it  very  well.     It  is  there  — 

'*  It  is  there  that  my  old  mother  lives,"  said  the  doctor 
slowly.  "  My  name  is  Journau.  Do  you  know  my 
mother?  " 

**  I  was  quartered  in  her  house." 

"Ah!     Mon  Dieu!     How  is  she?  " 

"  She  is  well  —  very  well.  She  is  a  very  worthy  per- 
son and  I  suffered  from  the  annoyance  which  our  pres- 
ence caused  her.  I,  too,  have  an  old  mother  in  Magde- 
burg, and  I  thought  of  her  when  I  saw  your  mother 
weeping.  But  such  is  war!  " 

The  doctor  breathed  freely.  Big  tears  ran  down  his 
cheeks.  But  he  collected  himself,  and,  bending  again 
over  the  wound,  he  announced: 

"  We  are  going  to  put  you  to  sleep  right  away.  It  is 
nothing  serious.  You  will  soon  be  well." 

While  they  washed  the  wound  with  tincture  of  iodine 
and  an  assistant  got  ready  to  administer  ether,  the 
wounded  man  gave  some  more  details: 

"  Yes,  your  mother  is  well  and  suffers  no  inconveni- 
ences. The  house  is  always  in  order,  as  if  for  a  fete. 


UNDER  ETHER  11 

Her  rooms  are  so  neat  and  the  floors  so  scrupulously 
polished  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  look  at  them  in  passing. 
She  waters  her  flowers;  she  trims  her  rose  bushes.  An 
attractive  house!  A  fine  woman!  " 

Then  his  voice  wavered  a  little;  he  grew  stiff;  soon  he 
relaxed  and  softly  passed  into  slumber. 

In  the  midst  of  the  operation  he  gave  a  start,  turned 
his  head  to  one  side  and  babbled  some  meaningless 
words.  The  assistant  was  about  to  administer  more  gas, 
but  the  surgeon  stopped  him. 

"  Not  too  much.     We  are  nearly  through." 

The  prisoner  began  to  talk  again.  This  time  his 
words  were  precise,  his  phrases  clean-cut.  His  voice, 
which  a  little  while  before  had  been  so  calm,  became 
harsh  and  imperious,  and  he  smiled  between  his  phrases 
with  a  huge  smile  which  shook  his  abdomen  and  his 
arms. 

"  Go  ahead!  Go  ahead!  Take  that  old  wardrobe  out 
and  burn  it!  Break  it  open  for  me  first!  Linen? 
That's  good  to  wipe  our  shoes  with.  What  does  she 
say?  A  spigot  for  the  wine  casks?  Ho,  there,  the  rest 
of  you!  Get  an  ax  and  draw  the  wine  out  in  buckets." 

The  doctor's  hand  trembled. 

"Hurrah!  "  the  wounded  man  went  on.  "Seize  the 
old  woman!  Tie  her  to  a  chair  if  she  is  obstinate!  She 
has  a  son  who  is  an  officer?  Ha!  Ha!  Slap  her  on  the 
head  till  she  gives  us  the  key  to  her  strong  box!  " 


12        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

The  old  doctor  stood  erect,  very  pale.  For  an  instant 
his  terrible  eyes  ran  from  his  fingers  to  the  neck  of  the 
Boche.  Then,  in  a  very  low  voice  he  said  to  his  assist- 
ant, as  he  bent  down  again: 

"  Give  him  a  little  more  gas.  Unless  you  do  so  I  am 
afraid  I  can't  go  ahead." 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE 
MAURICE  LEVEL 

nPHE  house  of  M.  Hermann  was  the  third  to  the  left  on 
J-  the  Place  au  Cuir,  facing  the  market.  A  shop  occu- 
pied the  ground  floor  —  a  gloomy  ground  floor,  where  it 
was  often  necessary  to  light  the  lamps  before  sunset. 

In  the  springtime  the  linden  trees  on  the  sidewalk  filled 
it  with  a  perfume  of  honey,  which  mingled  with  the  crude 
odour  of  linens  and  cottons.  When  winter  came,  one  saw 
the  storks,  abandoning  Alsace,  fly  by  just  over  the  roofs 
in  a  long,  noisy  train. 

Hidden  in  the  back  of  his  shop,  ignoring  Sundays  and 
feast  days,  M.  Hermann  came  and  went,  pushing  his  lad- 
der, rolling  and  unrolling  his  pieces,  stopping  only  to 
verify  his  change,  to  measure  his  cloth  twice,  to  sell  to 
his  patrons  bodices  and  blue  blouses,  or  trousers,  which 
kept  for  weeks,  in  spite  of  the  rain  and  wind,  the  deep 
creases  worn  in  them  on  the  shelves.  Once  a  year  he 
closed  his  shutters  and  disappeared.  Then  the  neigh- 
bours said : 

"M.  Hermann  has  gone  to  Haguenau  to  gather  his 
hops." 

Because  M.  Hermann  had  still  down  there  his  old  par- 
13 


14        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

ents,  a  little  farm  and  a  house  —  a  fine  house,  which  the 
Prussians  had  turned  into  a  casino  for  the  officers,  since 
it  stood  near  the  new  barracks. 

He  was  there  on  July  30,  1914,  and  returned  on  the 
day  when  they  posted  on  the  walls  the  notice  of  mo- 
bilization. The  whole  village  was  en  fete.  The  old 
people  smiled  and  rubbed  their  hands.  The  young 
people  went  away  singing,  their  bags  over  their  shoul- 
ders. Standing  on  his  front  doorstep,  he  watched  what 
was  going  on,  but  said  nothing.  Presently  the  Mayor, 
M.  Schmoll,  a  veteran  of  the  War  of  1870-71,  came  up 
to  him  and  slapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  exclaiming: 

"  This  time,  Monsieur  Hermann,  they  are  going  to  get 
back  our  old  country  for  us.  And  the  thing  will  not  be 
dragged  out.  Before  the  storks  sing  their  farewell  I 
wish  to  see,  in  Strasburg,  if  my  chop  is  still  waiting  for 
me  in  the  Cafe  a  la  Mesange,  at  my  old  table  near  the 
wine  tun." 

M.  Hermann  nodded  his  head  gravely  and  answered: 
**  I  hope  you  may  find  it  there,  Monsieur  Schmoll." 
That  same  evening  a  squadron   of  dragoons  passed 
through  the  village  on  a  trot.     The  next  morning  a  bat- 
talion   of   chasseurs    made    a   brief   halt.     The    people 
pressed  about  them  on  the  main  road,  throwing  them 
flowers,  and  crying  "  au  revoir  "  to  the  soldiers. 

Then  for  two  days  one  heard  nothing  and  saw  noth- 
ing but  a  French  aeroplane,  which  wheeled  for  a  mo- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE  15 

ment  in  the  sky  and  then  disappeared.  But  on  the  third 
day,  early  in  the  morning,  they  heard  a  distant  cannon- 
ade, and  about  2  o'clock  the  chasseurs  passed  through 
again  without  singing,  grey  with  dust,  followed  soon  by 
gendarmes,  weary  and  begrimed.  The  gendarmes 
stopped  in  the  village  square.  The  inhabitants  came 
running  to  hear  the  news.  M.  Schmoll,  the  Mayor,  very 
pale,  came  up  and  asked: 

"  Have  things  gone  wrong,  brigadier?  " 

"  They  didn't  go  very  well,  Monsieur  le  Maire.  We 
are  retreating,  and  the  Boches  are  following  us  closely. 
It  is  necessary  that  the  women  and  children  and  all  the 
young  men  between  sixteen  and  nineteen  should  leave  the 
village.  They  must  start  within  two  hours.  It  is  the 
provost's  order." 

M.  Schmoll  read  the  paper,  folded  it  and  put  it  into 
his  pocket.  Then,  turning  to  the  group  around  him,  he 
said: 

"  My  friends,  you  have  heard  what  the  brigadier  said. 
You  must  leave.  Only  those  whom  duty  or  advanced  age 
detains  may  stay  behind.  You  others,  put  your  most 
valuable  possessions  in  wagons,  lock  your  doors  and 
go!" 

He  stopped  there,  because  his  emotion  choked  him. 
Gathering  himself  together  again  he  added: 

"  But  it  will  not  be  for  long,  if  it  please  God." 

About  5  o'clock  the  Germans  entered,  playing  their 


16        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

fifes  and  beating  on  their  flat  drums.  Before  the 
Mayor's  office,  wearing  his  scarf,  his  military  medal  and 
his  medal  of  1870  pinned  on  his  coat,  M.  Schmoll 
awaited  them. 

First  they  seized  the  post  office  and  the  railroad  station. 
Then  they  requisitioned  forage  and  wine.  Finally,  the 
sentinels  having  been  placed,  the  officer  who  commanded 
the  troop  said: 

"  You  will  guarantee  with  your  person  the  security  of 
my  soldiers.  If  one  of  them  is  insulted  I  shall  arrest 
you.  If  one  of  them  is  injured  you  shall  be  hanged." 

M.  Schmoll  straightened  out  his  angular  figure. 

"  So  long  as  your  men  respect  the  lives  and  honour 
of  the  inhabitants,  no  one  will  do  them  any  harm.  That 
is  all  that  I  can  guarantee  you." 

The  officer  slapped  his  boot  and  grinned. 

"  Agreed.     And  now  take  me  to  Hermann,  the  draper." 

M.  Schmoll  was  speechless  for  a  minute. 

"  Hermann,  the  draper?     Do  you  know  him?  " 

"  Probably.     Let  us  go." 

M.  Schmoll  bit  his  lips  and  obeyed. 

When  he  saw  the  officer  and  the  Mayor  enter  M.  Her- 
mann came  to  the  door  of  his  shop,  putting  on  his  spec- 
tacles. The  officer  took  a  seat  at  the  counter,  looked 
around  and  said: 

"  Your  house  at  Haguenau  is  more  comfortable  than 
this  one,  M.  Hermann.  But,  no  matter.  Take  a  chair. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE  17 

You  are  an  intelligent  man.  I  want  to  talk  with  you. 
How  many  head  of  cattle  are  there  in  the  village?  " 

M.  Schmoll  interrupted. 

"  Monsieur  Hermann  is  not  authorized  to  answer  that. 
I  alone " 

"You  will  speak  when  I  address  you,"  said  the  offi- 
cer. "  Answer  me,  Monsieur  Hermann." 

"  But,  Monsieur  le  Commandant,"  the  merchant  pro- 
tested, "  it  is  very  difficult  for  me  to  give  you  anything 
like  an  exact  answer.  I  do  not  know  very  precisely." 

"  Good,  good.  You  will  inform  yourself  and  tell  me 
tomorrow.  Besides,  I  need  wine,  beer  and  groceries. 
I  count  on  you  to  make  your  Mayor  understand  what  I 
want.  He  appears  not  to  have  a  correct  notion  of  his 
obligations  to  His  Majesty's  troops,  or  to  realize  that 
what  he  is  not  ready  to  deliver  to  us  voluntarily  we  will 
certainly  take  from  him  by  force." 

M.  Schmoll  clenched  his  fists. 

"  I  have  no  obligation  to  fulfil  to  the  enemies  of  my 
country.  As  for  the  duties  with  which  I  am  charged,  I 
do  not  need  anybody  to  inform  me  about  them." 

The  officer  did  not  deign  to  understand.  He  lifted  his 
eyes  to  the  shelves. 

"  On  my  word,  Monsieur  Hermann,  you  have  a  fine 
stock  here." 

"  It  is  at  your  service,  Monsieur  le  Commandant,"  an- 
swered the  draper  with  a  bow. 


18        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

The  officer  now  inquired  about  a  watering  place  for 
the  horses  and  about  the  vehicles  available  in  the  village. 
He  also  asked  what  had  become  of  the  three  canvases  by 
distinguished  painters  which  were  known  to  hang  in  the 
chateau  of  M.  de  Pignerol. 

"  The  watering  place  is  a  hundred  metres  beyond  the 
slaughter  house.  You  will  find  some  carriages  at  the 
shop  of  Mathias,  the  blacksmith.  As  for  the  paintings, 
I  think  that  the  servants  of  M.  le  Marquis  have  carried 
them  away." 

"Too  bad!  Too  bad!  "  said  the  officer,  half  to  him- 
self. "  They  were  to  be  sent  to  the  museum  in  Berlin. 
But  we  shall  be  quits  if  we  find  them  a  little  further  on." 

Having  said  this  he  reflected  a  second,  and  recapitu- 
lated, under  his  breath: 

"The  wine,  the  beer,  the  groceries,  the  vehicles,  the 
watering  place." 

Then  he  arose. 

Night  had  come.  M.  Hermann  placed  a  lamp  on  the 
counter.  The  officer  lighted  a  cigarette  and  went  on: 

"One  thing  more.  By  what  road  did  the  French 
leave?  " 

"  By  the  main  road,  I  suppose." 

"  I  doubt  it.  But  I  don't  mean  the  civilians.  I  mean 
the  soldiers." 

M.  Hermann  hesitated. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE  19 

"  Mon  Dieu !  Monsieur  le  Commandant,  I  don't 
know." 

The  officer  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Come,  come !     No  foolishness !  " 

He  said  this  in  so  brutal  a  tone  that  the  merchant  was 
visibly  troubled. 

"Well " 

He  stopped,  shamed  by  the  look  on  M.  SchmolFs  face. 
But  he  was  afraid  of  the  Prussian,  and  answered  slowly: 

"Well,  they  had  to  take " 

"  You  mustn't  tell  that!  You  have  no  right  to !  "  cried 
M.  Schmoll. 

"  Be  quiet !  "  shouted  the  officer.  "  Continue,  Mon- 
sieur Hermann." 

But  M.  Schmoll  burst  in: 

"  Monsieur  Hermann,  be  silent !  I  order  you  to  say 
nothing.  While  I  am  alive  no  one  shall  betray  our  sol- 
diers. Monsieur  Hermann,  I  forbid  you  to  do  it.  Be- 
sides, you  don't  know.  You  know  nothing.  He  knows 
nothing  whatever,  Monsieur." 

The  officer  took  a  step  toward  him. 

"  But  you?     You  know,  don't  you?  " 

"  I  do.  But  if  you  put  twenty  bayonets  at  my  breast 
I  will  not  tell." 

M.  Hermann  bent  his  head  and  turned  his  skull  cap 
between  his  fingers. 


20        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

The  officer  yawned  and  stretched  himself  and  then  said, 
without  paying  any  attention  to  the  protests  of  M. 
Schmoll : 

"  You  hesitate?  So  be  it!  I  am  going  to  let  you  re- 
flect for  a  while  —  die  time  it  takes  me  to  smoke  a  cig- 
arette outside.  I  shall  be  back  in  five  minutes.  Try  to 
decide  by  then.  I  give  you  that  cdvice." 

When  he  was  gone  M.  Schmoll  took  the  merchant's 
hands. 

"  You  won't  say  anything,  will  you,  Monsieur  Her- 
mann? It  was  only  for  the  sake  of  gaining  time  that 
you  seemed  to  yield?  " 

M.  Hermann  disengaged  himself  and  passed  behind 
the  counter.  He  had  raised  his  head  and  spoke  with  pre- 
cision. 

"  I  am  going  to  tell  him.  If  I  could  I  should  remain 
silent.  All  that  I  possess  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Ger- 
mans, both  on  this  side  of  the  frontier  and  on  the  other. 
He  has  told  you.  What  we  do  not  do  voluntarily  they 
will  make  us  do  by  force.  The  law  of  the  victor  is  a 
terrible  law.  Believe  me,  Monsieur  Schmoll,  at  our  age 
we  must  know  how  to  incline  ourselves  to  it." 

M.  Schmoll  lifted  his  arms. 

"  Is  it  you  who  talk  like  that?     You!  " 

The  officer,  who  was  walking  before  the  door,  stopped 
to  relight  his  cigarette.  M.  Hermann  answered: 

"What  would  you  have  me  do?     I  am  only  an  old  dry- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE  21 

goods  merchant.  We  have  not  wished  the  war,  you  or  I. 
We  were  living  in  peace.  Then  why " 

"Be  silent!  "  cried  M.  Schmoll.  "Be  silent!  I  am 
ashamed  of  you." 

The  officer  re-entered. 

"Have  you  decided?" 

"  I  am  at  your  orders,"  murmured  M.  Hermann. 

"  The  sooner  the  better !  Get  your  hat  and  let  us  go. 
You  know  the  road?  " 

"  Very  well." 

"  You  will  serve  us  then  as  a  guide.  Let  us  get  under 
way  —  and  quickly." 

M.  Schmoll  stammered: 

"Wretch!     Wretch!" 

The  officer  pushed  him  into  the  street. 

"  You,  Mayor,  come  with  us!  " 

M.  Hermann  exchanged  his  slippers  for  heavy  shoes, 
drew  on  his  cloak,  locked  his  cash  drawer,  put  up  the 
shop  shutters,  extinguished  the  lamp  and  followed  the 
others  out. 

In  the  Place  four  companies  were  assembled.  They 
put  M.  Schmoll  between  two  men  and  the  troop  set  out, 
M.  Hermann  leading.  M.  Schmoll  tried  to  escape. 
They  pushed  him  back  into  the  ranks  with  the  butts  of 
their  rifles.  He  cried  aloud,  pointing  to  M.  Hermann : 

"  Look  at  the  traitor!     Vive  la  France!  " 

Leaving  the  village,  they  followed  the  national  road. 


22        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

Then  they  took  a  road  leading  across  the  fields.  Some 
distance  away,  to  the  left,  a  bridge  crossed  the  river.  But 
M.  Hermann  showed  them  a  ford,  over  which  the  whole 
troop  passed,  scarcely  wetting  themselves. 

"  My  faith!  "  exclaimed  the  officer.  "  We  have  gained 
almost  four  good  kilometres.  At  this  rate  we  ought  to 
fall  on  their  rear  guard  before  daylight." 

The  night  was  so  black  that  one  could  hardly  see  three 
feet  ahead  of  him.  Each  time  in  the  course  of  the  march 
that  they  came  near  together  M.  Schmoll  hissed  at  the 
dark  figure  of  the  guide: 

"Boche!     Prussian!" 

At  first  M.  Hermann  simply  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
Finally,  becoming  annoyed,  he  asked  the  soldiers  to  put 
a  handkerchief  over  the  mayor's  mouth. 

After  having  marched  a  good  hour  they  entered  a  wood. 
At  a  junction  where  three  roads  crossed  M.  Hermann 
said: 

"  One  second,  so  that  I  am  sure  I  don't  make  a  mistake. 
In  the  daylight  I  should  have  no  trouble,  but  in  pitchy 
blackness  like  this!  " 

They  advanced  very  carefully.  The  company  to  the 
rear,  which  had  not  preserved  its  distance,  pushed 
against  the  company  preceding  it.  The  company  in  the 
lead  had  almost  come  to  a  halt.  The  column  was 
thrown  into  confusion.  M.  Schmoll  found  himself 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ALSACE  23 

against  M.  Hermann.  The  trees  were  so  tangled  that  the 
troops  could  neither  advance  nor  retire. 

In  the  semi-panic  M.  Hermann  gave  a  command  in  an 
undertone  to  M.  Schmoll: 

"Lie  down!     For  God's  sake,  lie  down!  " 

Then,  turning  about  and  waving  his  hat,  he  shouted  at 
the  top  of  his  voice: 

"Chasseurs  of  the  10th!  I  have  brought  them  to 
you!  Fire  into  their  ranks!  " 


AT  THE  MOVIES 
MAURICE  LEVEL 

E  simple  little  phrases,  such  as  one  uses  who  has  re- 
peated the  same  thing  over  and  over  again,  the  woman 
in  mourning  was  telling  her  story  to  a  neighbour  during 
the  intermission  at  the  moving  picture  show.  In  these 
war  times  one  makes  acquaintances  very  easily.  Any 
one  individual's  sufferings  are  but  a  part  and  parcel  of 
the  sufferings  of  the  community  at  large. 

"  Yes,  madam,  I  lost  my  husband  two  years  ago  —  my 
husband  that  was  to  be,  the  father  of  my  little  boy.  We 
were  to  be  married  in  the  autumn.  He  was  killed  at 
once  —  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  war." 

"  If  he  had  to  go,  it  was  better  that  he  shouldn't  have 
suffered  the  hardships  of  the  trenches  for  a  couple  of 
years." 

"  Perhaps,  yes;  perhaps,  no.  For,  at  least,  we  should 
have  seen  him  again,  and  he  would  have  written.  While 

this  way My  little  son  here,  who  is  nearly  seven 

years  old  —  he  hardly  remembers  his  father.     Think  of 

it!     My  husband  was  mobilized  among  the  very  first. 

He  was  not  yet  twenty-six.     Already  for  eight  days  he 

24 


AT  THE  MOVIES  25 

had  told  me :  'It  will  be  war.  You  will  see.'  But, 
like  so  many  others,  I  wouldn't  believe  it. 

"  One  evening,  returning  from  his  office,  he  said  to  me: 
'  It  has  come.  I  am  off  tonight.'  I  wanted  to  make 
him  up  a  bundle  of  clothing,  with  some  linen.  But  he 
wouldn't  wait.  He  scarcely  listened  to  me.  At  such  a 
time  one  could  almost  believe  that  nothing  counts  any 
longer  with  a  man!  I  had  just  put  the  little  one  to  bed. 
He  kissed  the  boy,  he  kissed  me  and  then  he  made  for 
the  street  on  the  run.  In  the  street  he  turned  to  wave  me 
a  good-bye  and  then  jumped  into  a  cab.  It  was  the  31st 
of  July.  Since  then  I  have  heard  no  news  of  him.  With- 
out doubt  he  was  killed  in  one  of  the  first  battles.  I  know 
neither  where,  nor  how,  nor  even  whether  they  were  able 
to  find  and  bury  him.  Not  one  thing." 

"Perhaps  he  is  a  prisoner!  How  can  anybody  tell? 
I  have  known  persons  who  have  gotten  news  after  many 
months." 

"  Oh !  I  no  longer  have  any  hope.  It  is  more  than 
two  years,  remember.  Well,  that  was  to  be  my  fate.  At 
any  rate,  I  have  my  little  boy;  he  helps  me  to  live. 
Poor  little  fellow!  A  childhood  like  his  is  not  very 
cheerful.  To  see  always  about  the  house  a  sad  figure, 
with  reddened  eyes!  Until  recently  I  didn't  care  to  go 
out.  Then  I  decided  to  take  him  to  the  picture  shows  in 
order  to  amuse  him.  The  picture  show  is  not  like  the 
theatre.  One  can  go  to  it,  even  if  one  is  in  mourning." 


26        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

The  electric  bell  sounded.  The  people  took  their 
places  again.  A  soldier  passed  by.  He  wore  a  military 
medal,  the  Croix  de  Guerre.  The  child,  leaning  over  to 
his  mother,  asked: 

"  Is  he  like  that,  my  papa?  " 

She  stroked  his  hair  softly. 

"Yes,  my  dear." 

"With  medals  like  that,  too?  " 

For  a  child  a  brave  soldier  ought  always  to  have 
medals.  The  mother  answered: 

"Yes,  dear." 

With  his  head  turned,  his  hand  in  his  mother's  hand, 
the  child  gazed  eagerly  at  the  soldier. 

The  lights  went  out  and  a  picture  title  appeared  on 
the  screen. 

"The  War  in  1914." 

"  Are  we  going  to  see  the  war?  "  asked  the  child. 

"Yes,  my  dear.     Look." 

At  first  streets  were  shown  —  a  chaos  of  half-demol- 
ished houses,  beams  smashed,  walls  shattered,  a  mass  of 
black  ruins  almost  without  form. 

"What  is  that?  "  asked  the  child. 

"A  village." 

"  That  a  village  ?     There  is  nothing  there." 

But  a  dog  ran  about  among  the  ruins,  and  a  little  boy 
also,  who  stumbled  over  the  stones.  Then  came  a  wide 
plain.  The  shells  had  dug  enormous  holes  in  it  and 


AT  THE  MOVIES  27 

along  the  road  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  —  even  to 
the  horizon,  where  heavy  clouds  of  smoke  gathered  and 
then  dissolved  —  one  could  see  only  the  big  trees,  razed 
almost  to  the  ground,  tumbled  right  and  left  among  the 
fields.  On  the  trunks,  already  dead,  some  leaves  still 
fluttered  in  the  wind. 

"  And  that?     What  is  that?  "  asked  the  child. 

"  The  country,  my  dear." 

"  Is  that  the  country?     There  is  nothing  there." 

"  It  was  beautiful  once,"  said  the  mother,  trembling. 
"  The  Germans  have  destroyed  everything." 

The  boy  gave  a  sidelong  glance  at  the  soldier. 

But  already,  in  another  film,  troops  defiled.  In  a 
heavy  rain  cavalrymen  trotted  along  the  roads  bordered 
by  ruins,  field  artillery  guns  were  dragged  at  a  gallop, 
jolting,  rolling,  plunging  into  and  rising  out  of  the  ruts. 
In  passing  one  saw  the  artillerymen  laugh  and  the  offi- 
cers lift  their  arms,  turning  in  their  saddles. 

"What  is  that?  "  asked  the  boy. 

"  The  pursuit,  my  dear,"  murmured  the  mother,  press- 
ing him  close  against  her. 

"  Are  they  running  after  the  Boches  to  capture  them?  " 

"Yes,  my  dear." 

And  behind  the  cavalrymen  appeared  the  infantrymen, 
spattered  with  mud,  their  shoulders  sagging  under  their 
heavy  packs. 

"  Are  they  going  to  fight?  "  the  child  asked. 


28        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Yes,  dear," 

To  her  all  the  soldiers  were  like  her  poor,  missing  hus- 
band. In  their  ranks,  under  each  helmet,  in  each  move- 
ment, it  was  he  whom  she  saw.  And  the  little  fellow, 
more  collected,  more  grave,  asked  in  an  almost  inaudible 
voice: 

"  Was  papa  like  that?  " 

Then  when  all  —  artillerymen,  cavalrymen  and  infan- 
trymen—  had  passed,  a  long  file  of  prisoners  appeared. 
One  saw  them  first  fleeing  under  the  fire  of  their  own 
cannon  to  our  lines,  then  in  the  camps,  then  in  huddled 
groups  about  the  coffee  kettles.  Some  were  very  young 
and  others  were  old;  some  with  stupefied  faces  and  a 
melancholy  bearing,  others  with  an  air  of  insolence. 
Still  others  lay  on  the  ground,  a  miry  horde,  conquered, 
disarmed.  The  mother  sighed. 

"  See  them.  Look  at  them  well,  my  son.  They  are 
Boches." 

And  the  film  unrolled  their  story.  They  were  neither 
presentable  nor  brilliant.  They  were  no  longer  swag- 
gerers. Famished,  gesticulating,  jostling  one  another, 
they  crowded  about  a  French  soldier,  who  was  distribut- 
ing rations,  and  as  they  got  their  allowance  they  scat- 
tered to  eat  it,  shamefacedly  and  apart. 

"  Are  they  soldiers?  "  asked  the  child. 

But  the  mother  was  weeping  too  much  to  answer. 

Suddenly  among  those  downcast  figures  a  bestial  and 


AT  THE  MOVIES  29 

joyous  figure  appeared.  He  was  a  clean-shaven  trooper, 
his  cap  over  his  ear,  who,  in  the  face  of  the  public,  alone 
on  the  screen,  cynically,  his  eyes  batted,  his  cheeks  pro- 
truding, consumed  with  huge  bites  his  piece  of  bread. 

"  Oh,  mama,"  said  the  child.  "  Mama,  see  how  ugly 
that  one  is." 

And  the  mother,  having  looked  up  through  her  tears, 
gave  a  cry  —  a  terrible,  heartrending  cry. 

For  that  German  glutton,  that  man  who  laughed  at  the 
hate  of  a  whole  hallful  of  people,  was  her  husband  —  her 
husband,  who,  she  believed,  had  died  in  our  ranks. 


THE  LITTLE  SOLDIER 
MAURICE  LEVEL 

OHE  listened,  her  elbow  on  the  table,  her  chin  in  her 
^  hands.  While  he  spoke  he  gazed  at  her  with  eager 
eyes  —  the  eyes  of  amorous  youth.  He  was  telling  her 
the  story  of  his  life  —  of  his  brief  memories  of  boyhood, 
of  college,  the  ending  of  his  studies;  the  war,  his  ardent 
desire  to  fight,  his  mother's  fears  and,  finally,  his  dream 
of  fighting  realized. 

She  interrupted  him: 

"How  old  are  you?" 

"Eighteen  years." 

She  smiled  and  laid  her  finger  on  the  narrow  ribbon 
which  he  wore  on  his  coat. 

"What  is  this?" 

"  That  is  the  emblem  of  those  wounded  in  battle." 

"  Have  you  been  wounded?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  without  attaching  any  importance 
to  it. 

Moved  by  the  thought  of  this  mere  boy  stricken  down, 
lying  in  a  ditch,  she  murmured,  with  an  air  of  almost 
maternal  interest  and  concern: 

"  Poor  little  fellow!  And  when  were  you  wounded?  " 
30 


THE  LITTLE  SOLDIER  31 

"AttheMarne." 

"  Was  it  a  serious  wound?  " 

He  answered  negligently,  pointing  to  his  breast: 

"  A  piece  of  shell  went  through  there." 

And  as  she  insisted,  anxious  to  have  all  the  details,  he 
told  her  what  he  knew  about  the  war:  The  hard  retreat; 
the  triple  daily  marches  to  the  rear;  then  the  advance,  the 
roads  encumbered  with  wreckage  and  bodies,  the  trees 
uprooted;  the  men  struggling  against  fatigue  and  sleep 
and  able  to  see  nothing  ahead  of  them  but  a  dead  plain 
and  a  grey  horizon;  the  sudden  thunder  of  the  artillery; 
the  blow  which  one  never  sees  or  knows  of,  but  which 
strikes  one  to  the  ground;  then  the  awakening  to  con- 
sciousness at  a  relief  station,  removal  to  a  distant  hos- 
pital, long  months  of  rest  under  a  gracious  sky,  convales- 
cence and,  finally,  the  furlough  home. 

She  took  one  of  his  hands  in  hers  and  repeated : 

"  Poor  little  fellow !  And  will  you  return  to  the 
front?  " 

"  I  hope  to." 

They  got  up.  The  wood,  this  springtime  night,  was 
filled  with  shadows  and  perfumes.  She  walked  along, 
leaning  on  his  arm,  stroking  with  her  ungloved  hand  the 
rude  cloth  of  his  cloak.  At  moments,  when  the  moon 
shone  on  them  from  between  the  trees,  she  glanced  ad- 
miringly at  his  delicate  little  figure,  his  shining  eyes  and 
his  beardless  cheeks.  He  scarcely  spoke  now,  forget- 


32        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

ting  the  war,  surrendering  himself  to  the  tenderness  of 
the  moment,  seeking  words  and  promises,  but  finding 
only  soft  pressures  and  sighs  with  which  to  express  the 
feelings  of  his  heart. 

Then  suddenly  the  sky  became  black,  the  trees  tossed, 
the  wind  bent  the  small  ones  double  and  whistled  among 
the  great  oaks  with  a  noise  like  bullets.  She  said: 

"A  storm  is  coming.     We  must  hurry  home." 

"  Why?     It  is  so  pleasant  here." 

In  fact,  they  were  happy  there,  in  spite  of  the  storm  — 
happy  to  be  alone  in  the  wood,  so  alone  that  the  wood 
seemed  to  belong  to  them.  She  smiled  as  they  made  a 
little  detour  from  the  main  path. 

"  If  I  were  not  with  a  soldier  I  should  be  afraid." 

These  words  filled  him  with  pride  and  he  pressed  her 
arm  softly.  Then  the  rain  began  to  fall,  and  they  sought 
shelter  under  some  trees.  With  her  thin  dress  and  her 
light  taffeta  mantle  she  could  not  help  trembling.  They 
thought  that  they  were  sheltered,  but  the  drops  reached 
them  gradually  and  then  the  shower  turned  into  a  steady 
downpour.  He  expressed  concern  about  her  being  so 
lightly  clothed.  She  answered: 

"  That  is  nothing.     But  how  about  you?  " 

"  Me?     I  have  been  in  worse  storms  than  this." 

She  excused  herself  for  having  asked  him  such  a  ques- 
tion. 

"  It  was  foolish,  of  course.     You  are  a  soldier." 


THE  LITTLE  SOLDIER  33 

Time  passed.  The  rain  beat  through  their  leafy  cov- 
ering. The  far-off  street  lamps  seemed  enveloped  in  a 
watery  haze.  No  conveyances  were  in  sight. 

"  We  must  go  home,  all  the  same,"  she  said. 

"  You  are  right,"  he  replied.  "  But  you  cannot  walk 
through  the  rain  this  way.  You  are  already  drenched. 
You  are  cold.  It  is  dark.  Nobody  will  see  you.  I  am 
going  to  put  my  cloak  over  your  shoulders." 

She  refused. 

"  And  how  about  yourself?  " 

"Nonsense.     Let  me  do  it,  please." 

He  unbuttoned  his  cloak  and  softly  laid  it  over  her. 
This  time  it  was  he  who  was  maternal  in  manner.  They 
hurried  along,  smiling,  through  the  rain,  but  each  one 
worried  about  the  other. 

"Are  you  all  right?  " 

"  All  right.     And  you?     Aren't  you  cold?  " 

"  Not  at  all." 

"  I  should  never  forgive  myself  if  you  were  taken  ill 
again." 

At  a  roadhouse  they  found  a  carriage.  As  he  shiv- 
ered a  little  she  put  her  hand  on  his  jacket. 

"  You  are  wet  through." 

"  It  is  nothing  at  all." 

"  When  you  get  home  you  must  change  your  clothes 
at  once." 

"  I  promise  you  that  I  will." 


34        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

She  heard  his  teeth  chatter. 

"  I  am  heartbroken.     If  you  should  fall  ill " 

"But  you  didn't  catch  cold;  that  was  the  only  im- 
portant thing." 

He  thought  of  nothing  else  than  of  gazing  at  her,  of 
cuddling  up  against  her,  stroking  affectionately  the  big 
cloak  which  for  a  few  minutes  had  sheltered  her.  On 
parting  with  him  she  said: 

"  Above  all,  let  me  hear  from  you  soon." 

Then  he  kissed  her  hand  and  let  her  enter  her  house. 

A  week  went  by  without  her  hearing  anything  from 
him.  She  did  not  dare  to  go  herself  and  inquire  about 
him.  One  day  she  passed  by  the  house  in  which  he 
lived.  They  had  put  straw  in  the  street.  That  evening 
she  decided  to  telephone. 

They  told  her  that  the  little  soldier  was  ill  —  in  fact, 
very  ill.  And  one  morning  she  received  a  letter,  the 
envelope  bordered  in  black.  He  was  dead.  Stupefied, 
she  read  and  re-read  that  frightful  line: 

"  Jean  Louis  Verrier,  corporal  of  the  7th  Infantry." 

Her  little  soldier!  Her  poor  little  soldier!  She  fol- 
lowed the  funeral  procession,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
hearse,  which  went  jolting  along  draped  with  a  tri-colour 
bunting  and  with  the  blue  cloak  with  which  he  had  cov- 
ered her. 

Afterward  a  desire  to  know  something  more  about  this 
poor  youth,  of  whom  she  really  knew  so  little,  led  her 


THE  LITTLE  SOLDIER  35 

to  pass  again  by  the  house  in  which  he  had  lived.  Some 
men  had  just  removed  the  furnishings.  She  approached 
the  janitress  and  said  to  her: 

"  Mon  Dieu,  but  he  went  quickly." 

"Alas!  "  sighed  the  good  woman.  "They  had  little 
hope  that  he  would  pull  through." 

"  It  was  his  wound,  I  suppose?  " 

"  Oh !  his  wound  —  that  would  never  have  carried  him 
off.  That  would  have  healed.  But  he  had  weak  lungs. 
In  spite  of  that,  they  could  never  prevent  him  from  tak- 
ing risks.  All  those  fatigues,  all  those  hardships  — 
they  were  too  much  for  him.  He  got  pneumonia.  He 
was  passed  along  for  six  months  from  one  hospital  to  an- 
other, refusing  always  to  be  mustered  out.  They  thought 
that  he  was  better.  He  must  have  committed  some  im- 
prudence. He  got  pneumonia  again,  and  that  finished 
him." 

She  answered: 

"  Thank  you,  madame." 

And  thinking  of  the  spirit  of  that  adolescent,  who  had 
marched  toward  death  for  a  beautiful  ideal,  and  then, 
for  the  simple  joy  of  being  gallant  toward  a  woman,  had 
carried  with  him  to  the  tomb  no  other  trophies  than  a 
piece  of  ribbon  and  a  woman's  smile,  she  sighed: 

"  He  was  a  man." 


THE  GREAT  SCENE 
MAURICE  LEVEL 

A  VOICE  mounted  from  the  depths  of  the  obscurity 
in  which  the  main  floor  of  the  theatre  was  left,  de- 
spite the  glare  of  the  six  dusty  stage  lamps. 

"  That's  not  the  way,  Monsieur  Fanjard.  Won't  you 
do  it  over  again?  " 

Fanjard,  who  had  been  perched  on  a  chair,  which  rep- 
resented the  staircase  of  a  chateau,  jumped  down  and 
made  his  way  to  the  front  of  the  stage.  Respectfully, 
yet  not  without  a  certain  hauteur  —  his  foot  on  the 
prompter's  cubbyhole,  his  elbow  on  his  knee  and  his  hand 
held  to  his  ear  like  an  ear  trumpet  —  he  asked : 

"  What  is  it,  monsieur?  " 

The  author  called  back  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  as  if 
making  head  against  a  tumult: 

"  I  should  like  to  have  in  that  passage  more  ardour, 
more  passion,  more  grief.  Do  you  understand?  " 

"  I  understand,"  answered  Fanjard,  with  a  bow. 

The  author  would  have  been  glad  to  elaborate  his 
meaning.  But  Fanjard,  having  already  returned  to  his 
chair  staircase  and  said  to  his  comrades,  "  Let  us  do  it, 
36 


THE  GREAT  SCENE  37 

over,  my  friends,"  played  the  climax  of  the  scene  again 
just  as  he  had  played  it  before. 

"That's  not  right  yet!  That's  not  right  yet!  "  cried 
the  author.  "  You  are  on  the  first  step.  Mile.  Ravignan 
lifts  her  arms  toward  you.  You  stop  her  with  a  gesture. 
'  What  is  it?  '  A  silence,  you  understand,  mademoiselle? 
A  silence,  a  simple  silence!  You,  Monsieur  Fanjard, 
you  ask  her,  almost  in  a  whisper:  '  Your  brother?  My 
son?  '  You  bow  your  head,  mademoiselle.  That  is 
enough.  He  has  understood  you.  Then  you,  Monsieur 
Fanjard,  you  utter  a  cry,  a  harrowing  cry;  all  the  rest 
of  the  scene  is  only  a  sob.  You  see  what  I  want.  Let 
us  try  it  again !  " 

With  a  glacial  patience  Fanjard  played  the  scene  over. 
But  this  time  his  articulation  was  hardly  any  more  im- 
passioned, and  his  gestures,  barely  sketched  out,  seemed 
to  die  away,  as  if  succumbing  to  some  invisible  obstacle. 

Five  o'clock  sounded  and  the  players  left  the  stage. 
The  author  rejoined  Fanjard  in  the  wings.  After  having 
gesticulated,  shouted  and  fumed  for  three  hours,  he  had 
a  moist  skin,  a  dry  tongue  and  a  hoarse  voice.  Fanjard, 
as  he  made  his  way  toward  his  dressing  room,  listened 
to  the  other  composedly.  He  was  an  old  actor,  reckoned 
as  one  of  the  glories  of  the  stage,  and  all  its  noblest  tra- 
ditions survived  in  him.  The  author  had  thrown  an  arm 
across  his  shoulders  and  talked  to  him  as  they  walked 
along. 


38        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  It  is  the  capital  scene,  my  dear  sir.  If  it  doesn't  go 
the  whole  piece  will  fail.  What  it  needs  is  emotion, 
grandeur,  despair.  Don't  hesitate  to  let  yourself  go. 
You  can  make,  and  you  ought  to  make,  something  sen- 
sational out  of  it  It  is  just  the  scene  for  you." 

"  I  see  —  I  see  very  well  what  you  wish.  But  at  re- 
hearsal I  can't  let  myself  go.  I  need  costume,  light,  at- 
mosphere. But  don't  worry." 

Still  the  author  insisted,  timid  and  firm  at  the  same 
time: 

"  Certainly  I  won't  worry.  Certainly.  But  I  should 
like  to  have  you,  once  before  the  first  night,  only  once, 
show  me  your  real  quality.  Only  once;  just  once. 
Think  of  it.  We  are  only  three  days  from  the  premiere." 

"  Don't  worry,"  repeated  Fanjard. 

Then  he  went  away. 

At  this  moment  the  director  passed  by.  He  asked 
with  a  pleasant  smile: 

"  Well,  how  does  it  go?     Are  you  satisfied?  " 

"  Satisfied?  My  dear  man,  my  piece  is  ruined  —  you 
understand,  ruined.  Mile.  Ravignan  is  passable.  The 
light  effects  are  a  fizzle;  Fanjard  is  bad,  bad,  bad!  " 

The  director  tried  to  calm  him.  He  had  heard  many 
others  talk  that  way,  and  he  knew  that  in  the  theatre,  bet- 
ter than  anywhere  else,  everything  somehow  works  out. 
Fanjard  was  an  artist,  sure,  conscientious,  incapable  of 
slighting  his  roles,  let  him  play  them  two  hundred  times. 


THE  GREAT  SCENE  39 

Obstinate?  Yes.  Unequal  at  rehearsals?  Possibly. 
But  exceeding  all  expectations  when  the  curtain  went  up. 

The  author,  still  skeptical,  shook  his  head. 

"  Let  us  wait  and  see,  my  dear  master,"  the  director 
protested.  (And  when  a  director  thus  addresses  an  au- 
thor who  has  only  a  vague  claim  to  such  a  title,  he  is  us- 
ing his  ultimate  argument.)  Let  us  wait  and  see.  Have 
more  confidence.  I  am  as  much  interested  in  the  suc- 
cess of  your  piece  as  you  are.  Don't  get  worried  yourself 
—  and  don't  worry  him.  He  is  so-so  now,  perhaps ;  only 
so-so.  But  he  will  be  superb.  That  I  guarantee  you." 


The  first  night  arrived. 

In  the  back  of  a  box,  alongside  the  director,  the  author 
listened  to  his  play.  The  first  part  of  it  was  a  torture. 
With  each  spectator  who  entered  late,  with  each  seat 
slammed  down,  he  had  the  feeling  that  humanity  in  gen- 
eral was  in  a  conspiracy  to  ruin  him.  Yet  the  director 
kept  whispering  to  him: 

"  It's  a  go.     It's  a  go." 

After  the  first  curtain  he  wanted  to  go  up  to  the  dress- 
ing rooms  and  give  some  last  suggestions  to  the  actors. 
But  the  director  dissuaded  him. 

"  Let  them  alone.  Don't  bother  them.  Believe  me,  it 
will  be  a  success." 

The  second  act  had  a  succes  d'estime,  and  the  curtain 


40        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

rose  for  the  third  act.  Fanjard  finally  appeared,  de- 
scending the  staircase  with  an  air  of  nobility.  Mile. 
Ravignan  stretched  out  her  arms  toward  him.  He 
stopped  her  with  a  gesture  and  said,  "  What  is  it?  "  And 
then,  in  a  low  tone,  "Your  brother?  My  son?  "  She 
bowed  her  head,  and  he,  just  as  at  the  rehearsals,  with- 
out a  cry,  without  a  sob,  began  his  set  speech. 

Clinging  to  the  arms  of  his  velvet-covered  seat,  arch- 
ing his  shoulders,  the  author  growled  out,  as  if  he  thought 
he  could  communicate  his  own  fire  to  the  actor: 

"Let  go!     Let  go!     Let  go!  " 

But  Fanjard  continued  to  the  end  in  a  colourless  voice. 
While  the  curtain  descended  amid  merely  courteous  ap- 
plause, the  author  ran  to  the  wings.  The  fury  which 
he  had  held  back  for  eight  days  nearly  strangled  him. 
Fanjard  was  returning  to  his  dressing  room. 

"  Well,  are  you  satisfied?  "  the  author  shouted  at  him. 
"  You  have  wrecked  my  play.  Yes,  you  were  going  to  re- 
serve yourself  for  the  first  performance!  You  should 
have  talent,  my  dear  sir,  before  you  have  genius.  Ef- 
fects are  not  improvised.  They  are  produced  by  hard 
work.  And,  besides,  what  a  role  you  had!  What  a 
scene!  A  scene  to  raise  the  house.  A  father,  a  father, 
who  has  only  one  love,  one  joy  in  the  world  —  his  son. 
They  tell  him  of  his  son's  death,  and  you  stand  there 
tranquil,  half  stupefied!  I  declaimed  the  scene,  even  in 
writing  it.  I  shouted  it." 


THE  GREAT  SCENE  41 

Then  the  old  actor  answered  softly,  without  anger, 
without  indignation,  without  any  show  of  wounded  pride : 

"You  are  wrong,  monsieur;  and  that  is  because,  for- 
tunately for  you,  you  don't  know.  I  learned  only  four 
hours  ago  of  the  death  of  my  son,  killed  at  Craonne;  and 
I  did  not  cry  aloud  then  any  more  than  I  do  now." 


AFTER  THE  WAR: 
MAURICE  LEVEL 

A  LTHOUGH  he  was  a  colonel,  a  Prussian  baron,  a 
•£*•  veteran  officer  of  the  Guard  and  the  possessor  of  a 
castle  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  at  which  His  Majesty 
the  Kaiser  had  once  stopped  for  a  few  hours,  in  other 
respects  this  Boche  had  a  spirit  rather  generous  for  a 
Boche. 

Having  served  two  years  at  Paris  as  an  embassy  at- 
tache, he  recalled  that  sojourn  with  infinite  graciousness, 
and  never  advertised  more  than  was  necessary  the  fact 
that  he  had  spent  two  other  years  in  the  same  city  as  an 
employe  in  a  little  restaurant  near  the  Champ-de-Mars, 
frequented  by  orderlies  of  the  officers  of  the  ficole  de 
Guerre.  In  this  capacity  he  had  acquired  a  real  respect 
for  the  French  soldier  —  for  his  discretion  and  the  affec- 
tionate attachment  which  he  bears  his  chiefs. 

Certainly,  war  seemed  to  him  a  legitimate  thing.  But 
he  practised  it,  to  use  his  own  expression,  "  in  a  chival- 
rous manner." 

In  the  house  which  he  occupied  he  would  have  felt 
himself  at  fault  if  he  had  not  left  his  card  once  a  month 
on  his  involuntary  hostesses,  if  he  had  not  sent  them  in- 
42 


AFTER  THE  WAR  43 

vitations,  with  a  program,  for  the  military  musicals,  and, 
on  Sedan  Day,  a  card  for  the  review.  At  that,  he  was 
astonished  that  these  ladies  were  not  more  appreciative  of 
such  delicate  attentions. 

In  the  line  of  service  he  showed  himself  strict  (as  was 
proper),  but  not  brutal.  He  went  so  far  as  to  speak  to 
the  under-officers  as  if  they  were  almost  human  beings, 
and,  in  the  evening,  on  the  Mall,  to  converse  with  lieu- 
tenants who  were  neither  noble  nor  long  connected  with 
the  army  (the  war  had  so  decimated  the  ranks  of  the 
others!).  He  even  struck  up  a  friendship,  so  to  speak, 
with  one  of  these,  an  attractive  fellow,  obsequious,  cor- 
rect, well  educated,  too,  for  an  ordinary  plebeian.  With 
him  the  colonel  talked  freely  and  confidentially. 

"  When  we  shall  have  won  the  war  I  should  like  to 
live  in  Paris  again.  It  is  a  very  agreeable  city.  The 
Bois  de  Boulogne  is  exquisite  at  all  seasons  of  the  year; 
the  theatres  show  excellent  taste,  and  the  women  are 
charming." 

"  I  was  highly  delighted  with  the  visit  I  made  there  in 
July,  1914,"  answered  the  lieutenant.  "One  can  do 
business  easily,  the  people  are  hospitable,  and,  if  one 
wishes  to  live  the  sort  of  life  there  that  he  lives  at  home, 
our  compatriots  are  so  numerous  that,  in  the  evenings, 
we  can  gather  together  just  like  a  family.  I  speak  of 
conditions  before  the  war,  of  course." 

"Before   the  war!     Before   the  war!"   repeated   the 


44        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

colonel  a  little  abstractedly.  "  I  feel  that  after  the  war 
all  that  will  be  considerably  changed.  Sometimes  I 
read  the  Paris  newspapers,  and  I  am  pained  to  see  what  a 
hostile  feeling  there  is  against  us.  The  devil!  War 
is  war.  We  did  not  wish  to  make  war,  did  we?  We 
were  forced  to  make  it. 

"  Our  superiority  in  all  branches  of  human  activity  is 
such  that  no  people  can  resist  us.  That  is  a  fact.  Why 
don't  the  French  admit  it?  Since  we  are  the  most  cul- 
tured nation  on  earth  —  the  chosen  people,  you  might 
say  —  why  don't  they  let  themselves  be  guided  by  us? 
We  should  realize  great  things  together.  But  there  the 
old  Latin  obstinacy  comes  in.  How  regrettable  it  is  on 
their  part!  For  —  I  tell  you  this  between  ourselves  — 
I  am  very  fond  of  the  French." 

"  So  am  I,  Colonel." 

Thus  exchanging  ideas  they  regained  the  town,  where 
in  the  twilight  the  demolished  houses  stood  out  jagged 
against  the  sky,  since  the  horizon  was  lighted  everywhere 
with  conflagrations.  The  colonel  sighed: 

"  Look  at  that.  Don't  you  believe  that  it  cuts  a  sensi- 
tive German  to  the  heart  to  see  such  a  spectacle?  There 
is  the  farm  with  the  big  mill  on  it  —  a  fine  farm,  a  per- 
fect milling  establishment,  a  magnificent  investment. 
But  it  will  all  be  in  ashes  tomorrow.  Whose  fault  will 
that  be?  " 

"  It  is  war,"  the  lieutenant  suggested,  urbanely. 


AFTER  THE  WAR  45 

"  Indispensable  destructions,  which  the  superior  in- 
terest of  our  armies  amply  justifies.  That  is  another 
thing  which  the  French  fail  to  understand." 

"  Yet  it  is  all  very  simple." 

The  colonel  threw  away  his  cigar,  which  had  gone  out, 
stopped  and  lifted  his  finger. 

"  Under  all  circumstances,  Lieutenant,  remember  this," 
he  said.  "  It  may  be  that  for  strategic  reasons  we  shall 
abandon  this  country.  Let  us  root  tip  the  roads,  destroy 
the  bridges,  turn  the  streams  out  of  their  courses,  fell  the 
trees  and  throw  them  across  the  highways  —  let  us  do 
everything,  in  a  word,  which  the  security  of  our  armies 
requires.  But  let  us  commit  no  depredations  on  the  in- 
habitants. For  myself,  I  intend  to  set  an  example.  In 
the  house  in  which  I  live  I  shall  see  to  it  that  nobody 
touches  anything.  In  proportion  as  you  have  found  me 
paternal  and  considerate,  you  will  find  me,  if  my  orders 
are  not  scrupulously  obeyed,  a  man  of  iron." 

The  event  which  the  colonel  foresaw  arrived.  His 
regiment  retreated.  In  conformity  with  instructions  not 
a  tree  was  left  standing,  nor  a  bridge  on  its  arches,  nor  a 
stream  in  its  bed.  The  work  was  accomplished  method- 
ically; explosions  succeeded  one  another  at  regular  inter- 
vals. The  house  which  the  colonel  lived  in  alone  re- 
mained intact,  with  its  old  balconies  of  wrought  iron, 
its  garden  of  flowers,  its  windows  hung  with  curtains. 

The  colonel  departed  with  regret,  carrying  with  him  a 


46        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

few  souvenirs  —  two  silver  candlesticks,  a  clock,  a  silver 
gilded  water  glass  —  mere  trifles.  But  he  left  the  furni- 
ture shining,  the  table  linen  carefully  folded,  the  floors 
waxed  like  glass. 

He  had  already  reached  the  open  country  when  he  re- 
called that  he  had  forgotten  to  leave  a  P.  P.  C.  card. 
Desirous  of  being  impeccable  to  the  last  extreme,  he  re- 
traced his  steps.  But  on  entering  his  apartments  he 
stopped,  stupefied  at  first,  then  bursting  with  fury. 

With  blows  from  a  pick  four  soldiers  were  demolishing 
the  bathroom  and  the  water  pipes.  Seeing  him,  the  men 
redoubled  their  ardour.  He  shouted  to  them: 

"  Swine!     I  shall  have  you  shot!  " 

A  fifth  man  appeared,  his  sleeves  rolled  up,  a  hammer 
in  his  hand.  It  was  the  lieutenant  who  had  been  so 
amiable  and  correct. 

"  You?  Is  it  you  I  find  here?  "  bellowed  the  colonel. 
"  You,  who  know  my  ideas?  I  shall  send  you  before  a 
court  martial !  " 

"At  your  orders,"  answered  the  officer,  clicking  his 
heels.  "But  excuse  me,  Colonel.  All  this  installation 
comes  from  the  firm  of  Schwein,  Boelleri  &  Co.,  of  Mann- 
heim, of  which  I  am  the  representative  for  Northern 
France.  Our  house  alone  possesses  these  replacement 
parts.  And  after  the  war,  I  thought,  how  simple  it 
would  be  for  these  people  to  apply  to  us  for  the  plumbing 
fittings.  It  would  be  a  very  natural  way  of  resuming  bus- 


AFTER  THE  WAR  47 

iness  relations.  As  trifling  as  the  thing  seems,  it  con- 
cerns our  industry  in  the  highest  degree." 

"Well,  that  is  different,"  said  the  colonel  gravely. 
"  Deutschland  ueber  alles!  Consider  that  I  have  said 
nothing  at  all." 

Reassured  by  these  words,  the  lieutenant  finished  de- 
molishing, with  a  well  directed  blow  of  his  hammer,  a 
syphon  which  had  hitherto  resisted  his  attack. 


THE  MESSENGER 
FREDERIC  BOUTET 

rE  narrow  shop  front  was  painted  green.  The  in- 
-erior  was  all  filled  with  plants  in  pots  and  with 
flowers  arranged  in  vases.  Since  the  sun,  which  was 
unclouded  that  day,  shone  in  from  the  front,  the  little 
shop  took  on  the  aspect  of  a  sheltered  springtime  nook, 
enjoying  a  mildness  which  was  as  premature  as  it  was 
charming. 

A  soldier,  who  came  from  the  direction  of  Montpar- 
nasse,  had  stopped  and  was  gazing  at  a  big  tuft  of  an- 
emones. 

"  Well,  soldier,  are  you  looking  for  a  bouquet?  " 

The  soldier  raised  his  eyes.  It  was  the  proprietress,  a 
young  woman  with  brown  hair  and  greyish  eyes,  which 
sparkled  with  candour  and  confidence. 

"  A  bouquet?  No,"  he  answered  in  a  voice  composed 
and  almost  drawling.  "But,  you  see,  I  am  a  gardener 
by  trade.  And  I  love  flowers." 

"Are  you  Mme.  Bertha  Maret?  "  he  added,  glancing 
at  the  name  written  across  the  glass  door. 

"  Yes,  I  am.    But  why  do  you  ask?  " 
48 


THE  MESSENGER  49 

"My  name  is  Antoine  Lavaud  and  I  had  last  year  in 
my  section  a  comrade  whose  name  was  Maret." 

"Ah!  Won't  you  come  inside?"  said  the  young 
woman  with  a  little  start. 

He  followed  her  into  the  shop,  fresh  and  fragrant, 
smelling  of  earth  and  flowers.  He  took  off  his  cloak, 
but  remained  standing.  He  was  short  in  body,  thick-set, 
with  a  round  head  set  on  rounded  shoulders,  and  a  coun- 
tenance extraordinarily  pockmarked.  In  his  little  eyes 
there  was  an  expression  shrewd,  peaceable  and  winning. 

"  What  was  your  comrade's  first  name?  "  the  young 
woman  asked  brusquely. 

"Louis,  I  believe.  Yes,  that  was  it;  Louis  Maret  — 
a  big  blond,  a  very  good-looking  fellow.  Do  you  know 
him?  " 

"  Is  it  a  long  time  since  you  saw  him  last?  "  she  said, 
ignoring  his  question. 

"  Oh,  it  must  be  several  months.  You  see,  I  was 
wounded." 

After  a  pause  she  declared: 

"  I  am  not  acquainted  with  the  person  you  mention. 
If  that  is  what  you  wish  to  know,  now  you  know  it." 

She  turned  away  to  arrange  a  mimosa.  Her  fingers 
trembled  as  she  touched  its  fragile  leaves.  The  soldier 
went  away. 

Some  days  afterwards  he  returned.  Very  quietly  he 
entered  the  little  shop. 


50        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Excuse  me  if  I  disturb  you,"  he  said  to  the  young 
woman.  "  But  the  other  day,  when  I  spoke  to  you  about 
this  Louis  Maret,  I  believe  I  annoyed  you.  I  didn't  mean 
to  do  so." 

She  fixed  her  grey  eyes  squarely  on  him.  He  had  the 
air  of  an  honest,  well-meaning  man,  and,  after  all,  she 
could  not  suppress  her  desire  for  news. 

"I  was  quick  the  other  day,"  she  said.  "But,  you 
see  —  Louis  Maret  —  well,  he  was  my  husband.  For 
five  years  he  made  me  very  unhappy.  I  endured  every- 
thing—  everything,  you  understand.  When  he  left  me, 
four  years  and  a  half  ago,  I  felt  almost  like  an  old 
woman.  I  had  suffered  so  much.  He  went  away  three 
times  and  three  times  I  pardoned  him.  We  had  a  fine 
establishment  and  a  business  which  was  doing  well.  He 
squandered  all  that  I  had  and  left  me  on  the  street  with 
three  children,  the  youngest  only  two  months  old.  Since 
then  nothing  —  not  a  word.  The  money  —  that  I  didn't 
care  about  —  but  the  other  things.  I  believe  that  it 
amused  him  to  torment  me.  He  saw  to  it  that  I  should 
know  all  about  his  misconduct.  When  I  was  delivered  of 
him  for  good  I  succeeded  in  forgetting  him.  Now,  for 
me,  it  is  finished.  That  is  why  I  told  you  the  other  day 
that  I  didn't  know  him." 

"  Yes.  I  understand,"  said  Antoine  Levaud,  as  pla- 
cidly as  ever.  "  When  we  were  together  he  told  me,  with- 
out going  into  details,  that  he  had  behaved  very  badly 


THE  MESSENGER  51 

toward  his  family.  Probably  he  was  sorry.  Down  there 
one  reflects  —  one  changes,  you  see." 

"  Nonsense,"  she  answered,  shrugging  her  shoulders. 
"Why  would  he  have  changed?  Yes.  When  the  war 
began,  I  believed  that  he  would  come  to  see  me  before 
going  to  the  front.  That  he  would  write  me  a  line,  at 
least.  But  no.  And  when  he  came  back  on  leave  he 
looked  up  the  woman  for  whom  he  left  me  the  last  time. 
I  know  him.  But  it  is  all  the  same  to  me  now.  It 
is  finished.  I  have  my  children  to  raise,  and  my 
occupation  is  a  hard  one.  There  are  times,  in  the  busy 
season,  that  I  go  three  or  four  nights  without  sleep- 
ing." 

She  went  off  to  serve  a  customer. 

"  Tell  me,"  she  asked,  sharply,  when  she  returned, 
"  would  you  have  done  that?  Would  you  have  deserted 
your  wife  and  your  children?  " 

"  Certainly  not.  But,  you  see,  I  have  no  wife  and  no 
children,"  he  answered,  softly. 

From  that  day  on  he  reappeared  regularly.  His  visits 
to  the  shop  seemed  to  please  him  immensely.  He  insisted 
on  sweeping  the  floor:  he  watered  the  flowers.  Most 
frequently  he  sat  down  and  talked  with  the  young  woman. 
They  discussed  horticulture  or  exchanged  views  in  gen- 
eral, and  they  always  agreed  perfectly.  From  time  to 
time  Lavaud  dropped  some  phrases,  evidently  prepared 
in  advance,  about  repentance  and  forgiveness,  in  con- 


52        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

nection  with  which  he  mentioned  the  name  of  Louis 
Maret. 

One  day  he  arrived  early  in  the  afternoon,  seated  him- 
self opposite  the  young  wife,  who  was  preparing  a  sheaf 
of  leaves,  and  said  with  the  greatest  calmness: 

"I  am  a  liar!" 

She  raised  her  eyes  in  astonishment.     He  continued: 

**  Listen  to  me.  Maret  was  wounded  the  same  day  I 
was,  and  was  brought  here  to  the  same  hospital.  Only 
he  was  more  seriously  wounded  than  I  was,  and  he 
is " 

"Dead?  He  is  dead!  And  I  never  saw  him  again! 
And  I  have  never  had  a  chance  to  take  care  of  him!  " 

She  sprang  up,  very  pale. 

"No,  no.  He  is  not  dead.  He  is  getting  along  all 
right.  One  can  see  that  you  love  him,"  said  Antoine 
Lavaud,  watching  her  closely. 

"  What  I  have  said  I  agreed  with  him  to  say.  We  are 
intimate  friends,  and  he  has  told  me  everything.  He 
thought  that  you  would  never  pardon  him,  and  he  sent 
me  to  try  to  arrange  things  little  by  little.  He  has  re- 
pented, and  he  has  been  very  wretched,  you  know." 

"  Where  is  he?  "  she  cried.     "  Take  me  to  him." 

"  He  is  at  the  door.  He  is  waiting  there.  It  is  the  first 
time  he  has  been  allowed  to  go  out." 

She  listened  no  longer.  She  rushed  to  the  door  and 
was  now  sobbing  as  she  embraced  a  man  who  had  just 


THE  MESSENGER  53 

entered  and  whom  she  could  not  in  the  bottom  of  her 
heart  help  feeling  glad  to  find  so  aged  and  so  changed, 
since  thus,  she  thought,  he  would  be  perhaps  more  safely 
hers. 

Antoine  Lavaud  slipped  away  without  being  noticed. 

"  I  have  succeeded ;  I  am  happy,"  he  said  to  himself, 
out  in  the  street.  But  suddenly  he  felt  a  bitter  pang,  and 
he  comprehended  that  in  that  little  shop,  fresh  and  fra- 
grant, smelling  of  earth  and  flowers,  he  had  passed  the 
moments  which  were  the  sweetest  in  all  his  life  —  in  the 
company  of  an  unforgettable  woman  with  grey  eyes 
who  loved  another  whom  he  had  brought  back  to  her. 


THE  CONVALESCENT'S  RETURN 
FREDERIC  BOUTET 

QUITTING  the  little  suburban  railway  station,  Pierre 
walked  along  the  main  road  at  a  rapid  pace.  He 
was  very  excited  and  very  happy.  He  was  going  to  see 
her  again.  He  pictured  in  advance  the  surprise  and 
joy  of  the  young  woman,  and  now  he  no  longer  had  the 
doubts  which,  after  his  separation  from  her,  had  at  first 
tormented  him.  By  dint  of  recalling  the  incidents  of 
the  past  he  was  more  and  more  persuaded  that  he  did 
not  exaggerate  their  significance.  His  hope  had  become 
a  certainty.  When  he  saw  from  afar  the  wrought  iron 
gate  of  the  park  and  the  house  among  the  trees  he  gave 
a  start.  He  had  passed  there,  only  a  few  months  ago,  so 
many  hours  of  atrocious  suffering  and  anguish,  and  then 
so  many  hours  of  ravishing  joy,  returning  to  life  along- 
side of  her.  But  he  felt  a  sudden  disquietude.  Maybe 
she  was  not  there  any  longer.  He  hurried  to  the  gate, 
and  when  they  told  him  that  she  had  come  that  day,  as 
usual,  and  that  she  was  in  the  park,  he  experienced  a 
thrill  of  the  profoundest  delight. 

He  plunged  into  the  overgrown  pathways,  wild  and 
charming  with  their  rank  grasses  and  their  deep  shade, 
64 


THE  CONVALESCENT'S  RETURN       55 

athwart  which  the  afternoon  sun  shot,  through  the  tall 
trees,  some  brilliant  shafts  of  sunlight. 

Pierre  stopped  suddenly.  He  saw  a  short  way  off  the 
very  person  whom  he  was  seeking.  He  stood  motion- 
less. She  was  in  the  same  spot  to  which  they  used  to 
come  the  autumn  before.  She  was  seated  on  the  bench 
on  which  they  had  sat  so  many  times,  side  by  side.  But 
she  was  not  alone.  A  wounded  man  was  beside  her,  just 
as  he  himself  used  to  be  beside  her. 

Cautiously,  on  tiptoes,  gliding  behind  the  bushes,  he 
drew  near  and,  concealed  behind  a  clump  of  trees  in  the 
rear  of  the  bench,  he  watched  and  listened.  And  he  was 
so  upset  that  he  feared  the  beating  of  his  heart  would 
disclose  his  presence. 

Presently  the  young  woman  got  up  and  led  the 
wounded  man  back  to  the  house,  where  she  turned  him 
over  to  a  nurse.  Pierre,  taking  another  path,  followed 
her,  and  when  he  saw  her  alone  he  approached  and 
greeted  her. 

"  Madame,"  he  began,  in  a  voice  almost  choked  with 
emotion. 

She  turned  her  head  toward  him.  He  thought  that 
she  was  prettier  than  ever,  but  in  the  tender  and  serious 
eyes  which  were  bent  upon  him  he  saw  only  an  expression 
of  indifference. 

"  Monsieur?  "  she  said,  in  a  questioning  tone. 

Turning  pale,  he  cried  out,  brokenly: 


56        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Don't  you  recognize  me?  " 

She  was  evidently  surprised,  and  hesitated  for  a  few 
seconds.  Then  her  countenance  cleared. 

"  Ah,  yes,  yes.  Pierre  Marsier.  Now  I  remember  you 
very  well.  You  were  under  treatment  here  six  months 
ago.  And  your  arm  —  is  it  better?  You  were  seriously 
wounded  in  the  arm  and  breast,  weren't  you?  " 

"Yes.  My  arm  is  better.  It  is  still  weak  and  its 
strength  will  never  come  back  completely.  But  it  gives 
me  no  trouble." 

He  stopped  short.  It  was  not  to  talk  of  his  wounds 
that  he  had  come  back.  And  after  a  minute,  his  face 
contracted  into  a  frown,  he  repeated: 

"  You  did  not  recognize  me?  " 

"  I  did  not  expect  in  the  least  to  see  you  —  and  in  your 
civilian  clothes.  Now  that  you  are  no  longer  a  soldier, 
have  you  gone  back  to  your  business?  You  were  in  a 
bank,  I  believe?  "  she  asked  in  a  tone  of  cordial  interest. 

"  No,  I  am  engaged  in  industry,"  he  murmured. 

Side  by  side  they  walked  a  few  steps  down  the  path, 
and  the  young  woman  began  again,  very  amiably: 

"  And  it  occurred  to  you  to  come  back  to  our  hospital? 
That  was  very  courteous." 

Pierre  halted  and  looked  her  straight  in  the  face. 

**  I  came  back  to  see  you  —  you ' 

She  gave  a  little  start.     He  continued: 

"  Yes.    And  I  almost  thought  you  would  be  expecting 


THE  CONVALESCENT'S  RETURN       57 

me.  You  were  so  devoted,  so  sweet,  so  good,  so  tender 
to  me.  Don't  you  remember?  And  the  hours  which  we 
spent  together  —  and  our  conversations?  Then  I  be- 
lieved —  When  I  went  away  from  here  I  was  not  able 
to  have  a  talk  with  you  because  you  were  ill  and  you 
didn't  come  to  the  hospital  for  some  time.  I  have  been 
in  the  South  and  I  couldn't  write.  For  that  matter,  I 
preferred  to  come  back  in  person.  And  you  didn't 
recognize  me!  And  on  getting  here  I  saw  you  seated 
on  the  bench  —  on  our  bench  —  with  another  wounded 
man." 

"Well,  what  of  that?  "  she  asked  in  astonishment. 

"  I  got  up  close  to  you.  I  hid  myself  in  the  bushes  in 
order  to  see  you  and  hear  you.  You  said  to  him  the  same 
words  which  you  said  to  me.  You  had  for  him  the  same 
soft  and  affectionate  manner  —  the  same  smile  as  you  had 
for  me.  He  held  your  hand  just  as  I  had  held  it." 

"  Well,  what  of  that?  "  she  said  again,  very  calmly. 

"What  of  that?  What  of  that?  Don't  you  under- 
stand? I  had  fancied  —  I  had  hoped  —  I  thought  that 
you  were  not  indifferent  to  me.  I  knew  that  you  were 
free  and  were  alone,  as  I  was.  I  came  back  to  make  a 
proposal  to  you  and  I  find  you  exactly  the  same  with 
others  as  you  were  with  me." 

The  young  woman  reddened  slightly  and  a  look  of 
sternness  came  into  her  eyes. 

"  M.  Marsier,"  she  said,  "  I  exert  myself  to  console  in 


58        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

some  measure  those  who  have  no  one  else  to  console  them 
and  who  have  need  of  tenderness  and  affection  while 
they  are  struggling  back  to  life." 

He  made  no  answer.  He  realized  all  the  injustice  of 
his  reproaches.  He  realized  that  he  had  been  self-de- 
ceived in  fancying  that  she  loved  him  just  because  he 
loved  her  and  in  taking  her  compassion  for  tenderness. 
But  he  realized  above  all  the  bitterness  of  his  own  dis- 
appointment. 

"  But  see  here,"  she  continued,  very  gently,  "  you  know 
very  well  that  there  was  never  anything  in  my  words  or 

actions  which  could  have  led  you  to  believe .  I 

took  care  of  you  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  Naturally  I 
was  sympathetic.  You  were  a  wounded  man." 

"  Yes,  a  wounded  man  —  like  the  others,"  he  replied, 
sardonically. 

"  But  now  you  no  longer  need  me.     You  are  cured." 

She  held  out  her  hand  to  him  very  graciously.  Then 
she  turned  and  re-entered  the  hospital. 

But  he  walked  away  across  the  park,  looking  back 
with  envy  to  his  days  of  suffering  and  convalescence. 


THE  MEDALLION 
FREDERIC  BOUTET 

THE  sun  never  penetrated  into  the  narrow  little  street, 
and  the  shop,  shut  in  behind  a  large  house  which 
faced  on  another  street,  was  sombre  and  silent  as  a  cave. 
Dingy  with  dirt  and  thick  with  dust,  the  front  windows 
had  become  opaque.  Over  the  door  one  could  read  in 
defaced  letters:  "Barbinet:  Effects  Bought  and  Sold." 

Denise,  without  hesitating,  pushed  open  the  door.  In 
the  shadows,  from  which  came  a  smell  of  mouldiness, 
among  the  heterogeneous  objects  which  filled  the  shop 
from  one  wall  to  another  and  from  floor  to  ceiling,  she 
sought  the  eyes  of  Barbinet. 

Suddenly  she  started.  Silently  he  had  appeared  be- 
side her,  coming  from  behind  a  mattress  which  hung  sus- 
pended from  a  crosspiece.  He  was  a  thin  old  man, 
gnarled,  yellow,  bald,  full  of  wrinkles,  lost  in  a  brown 
greatcoat  of  seedy  looking  plush.  He  fixed  on  Denise 
his  little,  cautious  eyes,  blinking  and  reddened  about  the 
borders. 

The  young  woman's  resolution  suddenly  vanished. 
She  could  find  no  words  to  say,  and  her  emotion  made 
59 


60        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

her  appear  even  more  frail  and  childish  than  ever  in  her 
poor,  shabby  dress. 

"  I  came  for  the  medallion,"  she  stammered. 

"What  medallion?" 

"  You  know.  The  gold  medallion  which  I  left  in  pawn 
with  you  six  months  ago.  It  is  necessary  for  me  to  have 
it  back.  My  husband  will  soon  return.  I  don't  want 
him  to  know." 

"Oh,  yes!     Oh,  yes!" 

With  his  methodical  deliberation  he  went  to  a  case, 
hidden  under  the  old  curtains  which  shut  off  the  back  of 
the  shop,  and  brought  out  a  little  box,  with  a  ticket  which 
he  examined. 

"  That  makes  eighty-seven  francs,  with  the  last  month 
unpaid." 

"Eighty-seven  francs!     As  much  as  that!" 

She  made  a  movement  as  if  half  stunned.  But  she 
soon  recovered  herself. 

"Wejl,  you  must  know  the  amount  better  than  I  do. 
But,  see,  just  now  I  haven't  the  money.  So  I  have  come 
to  ask  if  you  wouldn't  give  me  back  the  medallion  for  a 
week.  I  will  return  it  to  you." 

"  I  can't  do  that,"  said  the  old  man,  in  his  dead  voice. 
"  I  am  sorry  I  can't  do  that." 

He  retreated,  with  the  box  and  the  ticket,  toward  the 
case.  Denise,  alarmed,  caught  him  by  the  arm. 

"  Wait,  I  beg  of  you!     Listen  to  me!     I  must  have  it! 


THE  MEDALLION  61 

I  am  going  to  explain  the  situation  to  you.  My  husband 
gave  it  to  me.  He  had  it  from  his  family.  It  is  the  first 
thing  he  ever  gave  me.  He  values  it  highly,  and  he 
knows  how  much  I  value  it  because  he  gave  it  to  me.  I 
have  never  parted  with  it  before.  But  when  Louis  was 
wounded  I  needed  money  to  go  to  see  him.  I  had  none. 
I  was  sick  and  could  not  work.  Then  I  thought  of  the 
medallion.  But,  you  understand,  my  husband  does  not 
know  that  I  was  sick.  It  would  have  been  the  last  straw 
if  I  had  told  him.  He  torments  himself  enough  about 
me,  because  we  have  no  relatives  at  all.  We  were  mar- 
ried four  months  before  the  war.  I  was  only  eighteen 
years  old.  But  my  aunt,  with  whom  I  lived,  had  just 
died,  and  Louis  s#id  that  I  was  too  young  to  live  all  alone. 
Think  what  anxiety  he  has  had  since  he  has  been  away. 
Now  if  he  sees  me  without  the  medallion  he  will  suspect 
something.  He  will  question  me,  and  I  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  tell  him  the  truth.  You  will  give  it  to  me, 
won't  you?  Only  for  a  week." 

She  stopped,  casting  an  imploring  look  at  the  old  man. 
She  had  forced  herself  to  tell  him  her  story  calmly  and 
clearly.  The  situation  was,  in  her  eyes,  a  poignantly 
tragic  one,  and  it  was  so  easy,  she  thought,  to  straighten 
it  out  without  damage  to  any  one  that  she  could  not  imag- 
ine the  pawnbroker  refusing  her  request. 

M.  Barbinet  had  listened  to  her  with  attention. 

"  It  cannot  be  done,"  he  repeated,  at  the  end.     "  That 


62        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

sort  of  thing  cannot  be  done  in  business.  Think  of  it 
yourself.  That  would  be  too  convenient  for  everybody. 
You  need  money,  for  one  reason  or  another.  You  know 
that  there  is  in  the  neighbourhood  some  one  who  can  help 
you.  You  look  him  up.  You  promise  everything,  and 
then  when  you  have  spent  the  money  you  come  back  and 
say:  'I  cannot  pay,  but  give  me  back  the  medallion 
all  the  same.'  No;  I  have  said  my  last  word.  Give 
me  eighty-seven  francs  and  I  will  return  the  medal- 
lion." 

"But  I  haven't  the  eighty-seven  francs.  The  little 
money  that  I  have  been  able  to  scrape  up  I  need  to  en- 
tertain Louis.  Think  of  it.  He  will  come  home  for  so 
short  a  time,  and  he  will  be  so  happy.  But  if  things  go 
wrong  he  will  return  to  the  front  with  an  uneasiness 
which  he  will  never  be  able  to  shake  off.  When  I  go  to 
meet  him  he  will  ask  me  why  I  am  not  wearing  the  medal- 
lion. No,  no ;  it  is  impossible.  Give  it  to  me." 

"  Find  the  money.  Eighty -seven  francs  —  it  is  not  a 
fortune.  You  can  manage  it,"  the  old  man  added,  be- 
tween his  teeth. 

He  did  not  say  how  it  could  be  managed.  Nor  did 
Denise  ask  him.  She  sobbed,  murmured  supplications 
and  began  again,  with  a  broken  voice,  her  humble  story. 
M.  Barbinet  reflected.  Without  doubt  he  was  moved. 
He  gave  a  little  cough,  went  to  his  desk  and  came  back 
with  a  sheet  of  paper  on  which  he  had  written  some  lines. 


THE  MEDALLION  63 

"  Don't  cry  any  more,"  he  said  benevolently.  "  It  is 
bad  for  the  eyes.  I  wish  to  show  my  confidence  in  you. 
You  see  that  I  am  an  honest  man,  and  that  they  are  wrong 
who  speak  evil  of  me  in  the  neighbourhood.  Sign  this. 
It  says  that  I  give  you,  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  it, 
a  medallion  which  belongs  to  me  and  which  you  obligate 
yourself  to  return  to  me  within  eight  days.  Now,  if  you 
don't  bring  it  back,  that  will  be  an  admitted  theft.  And 
people  who  steal  get  arrested.  Besides,  you  will  pay  a 
double  interest.  Do  you  agree?  " 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

It  was  all  the  same  to  her.  She  wanted  the  medal- 
lion. That  was  all.  She  signed  the  paper  and  went 
away  radiant,  carrying  it  with  her. 

She  had  it  on  her  neck  when  her  husband  arrived  the 
next  day.  He  noticed  it  with  satisfaction,  and  the  young 
wife  had  no  difficulty  in  making  him  believe  that  she 
lacked  for  nothing. 

The  last  day,  when,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  she  was 
helping  him  to  pack  his  bag,  he  said  to  her  suddenly: 

"  I  have  something  to  ask  of  you,  my  little  Denise. 
Give  me  the  medallion.  I  wish  to  carry  it  with  me.  It 
will  be  a  little  of  you  that  I  shall  have  out  there." 

"  I  shall  not  leave  my  picture  in  it,  you  understand," 
he  added  laughingly.  "  I  am  going  to  put  yours  into 
it." 

She  did  not  hesitate.     She  handed  him  the  medallion. 


64        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

He  slipped  into  it  a  picture  of  his  young  wife  and  said, 
half  apologetically: 

"  You  don't  think  that  I  am  foolish,  do  you?  You 
know  out  there  one  has  no  false  shame  about  loving  those 
whom  he  loves.  And  it  will  give  me  the  greatest  pleas- 
ure to  have  with  me  something  that  you  have  worn  so 
long." 

The  next  morning  he  went  away.  Denise  found  her- 
self alone  on  the  railroad  platform. 

Then  for  the  first  time  she  thought,  with  a  shock,  of  M. 
Bar  bine  t.  She  began  to  tremble  with  fear. 


THE  PROMISE 
FREDERIC  BOUTET 

afternoon  was  wearing  on.  The  threat  of  a  com- 
ing  storm  had  deepened  the  shade  of  the  forest  as 
the  soldier  who  was  following  the  wooded  path  debouched 
into  a  large  clearing.  He  recognized  this  at  once,  re- 
membering the  description  of  it  which  had  been  given 
to  him,  and  he  also  recognized  by  its  ivy-covered  roof 
the  house  which  he  was  seeking.  In  haste  he  crossed  the 
clearing  and,  as  the  first  drops  of  rain  imprinted  them- 
selves in  the  dust  of  the  path,  he  knocked  at  the  door, 
which  was  promptly  opened. 

"M.  Maray?  "  he  asked. 

"  Papa  is  not  here;  he  has  gone  to  town,"  answered  a 
fresh  voice.  "  But  if  you  wish  to  see  his  assistant,  he 
lives  only  a  little  distance  away." 

A  young  girl  had  appeared  on  the  doorstep,  followed 
by  a  huge  dog,  who  growled  and  whom  she  told  to  keep 
quiet.  She  seemed  to  be  about  sixteen  or  seventeen  years 
old.  In  her  grey  cloth  dress  she  looked  tall  and  well 
developed.  Her  clear  face  showed  lines  that  were  still 
childish;  but  her  eyes  were  serious,  calm,  serene.  With 


66        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

her  hand  she  brushed  from  her  brow  some  unruly  strands 
of  chestnut  hair. 

"  I  wanted  to  speak  first  to  M.  Maray,"  the  soldier 
stammered. 

On  seeing  her  he  had  recoiled  involuntarily,  and  she 
now  gazed  at  him  with  astonishment,  for  he  was  obvi- 
ously and  painfully  embarrassed,  and  that  didn't  go  well 
with  his  great  height,  his  vigorous  features  and  his  frank 
and  open  expression. 

"  If  I  could  come  back  again,"  he  murmured.  "  But 
that  is  impossible.  I  must  take  my  train  this  evening. 
And  after  all  it  is  you  —  you  are  the  one  with  whom  I 
must  speak." 

The  young  girl  had  scarcely  caught  those  last  words, 
so  violent  was  the  beating  of  the  rain.  She  asked  him 
to  enter  the  house,  and  closed  the  door  after  him.  They 
both  remained  standing  in  a  large,  dimly-lighted  room. 

"  I  see  that  you  do  not  know,"  he  began,  feeling  his 
way.  "  I  thought  that  you  might  already  have  had  some 
news.  I  wanted  to  break  it  first  to  your  father.  But  I 
am  obliged  to  return  at  once,  and  I  must  keep  the  prom- 
ise which  I  gave.  I  came  from  the  front,  you  know. 
My  name  is  Jean  Vautier,  and  I  was  the  comrade  of  one 
whom  you  know  well.  Yes  —  Paul  Tullier.  He  is 
wounded  —  gravely,  very  gravely " 

"  Mon  Dieu!  "  she  cried.  "  He  is  not Tell  me 

the  truth!  " 


THE  PROMISE  67 

He  made  no  answer,  realizing  that  she  understood. 
He  was  grieved  and  annoyed  that  he  should  have  told  his 
tragic  news  so  abruptly,  when  he  had  intended  to  lead 
up  to  it  more  circumspectly.  Venturing  to  look  at  the 
young  girl,  he  saw  that  she  had  turned  pale  and  that  her 
cheeks  were  wet  with  tears.  But  he  had  a  feeling  of  sur- 
prise. There  was  no  trace  there  of  that  terrible  despair 
which  he  had  feared  to  see.  He  began  again,  in  a  low 
voice : 

"  I  promised  him  to  bring  here,  if  anything  should 
happen  to  him,  some  of  his  effects  —  as  souvenirs. 
Here  they  are." 

On  the  table  between  them  he  placed  a  little  package, 
tied  with  a  black  ribbon. 

"Mon  Dieu!  Mon  Dieu!  Poor  Louise!  What  a 
misfortune !  "  murmured  the  young  girl. 

"Louise?  You  are  not  Louise?  You  are  not  Paul's 
fiancee?  " 

"  No,  no,"  she  answered,  shuddering  in  confusion  and 
anguish.  "  Louise  is  my  sister.  She  is  twenty  years 
old.  They  were  engaged  before  the  war.  I  was  only 
fourteen  then.  Poor  Louise!  She  loved  him  so  much! 
These  last  days  she  has  been  very  uneasy.  She  had  re- 
ceived no  letter  for  a  long  time.  She  went  to  town 
with  papa  to  try  to  get  some  news." 

"  You  are  Emilie?  "  said  the  soldier.  "  He  talked  to 
me  about  you  —  but  as  if  you  were  a  child." 


68        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Yes,  I  am  Emilie,"  she  replied. 

After  a  moment  of  silence  he  began  again,  motioning 
to  the  package: 

"  That  is  for  your  sister.  He  said  that  I  must  bring 
it  here  if  anything  happened  to  him.  He  fell  beside  me, 
killed  on  the  spot.  As  soon  as  I  was  able  to  do  so  I  kept 
my  promise.  He  was  my  best  comrade,  Tullier;  for 
months  we  were  together.  When  he  made  me  swear  to 
come  here  he  offered  to  do  the  same  thing  for  me,  if  I 
should  fall.  Only,  in  my  case,  it  was  not  worth  while." 

"  Why?  "  asked  Emilie,  raising  her  eyes. 

"Why?"  he  returned,  with  a  forced  smile.  "Be- 
cause I  am  alone  in  the  world  —  absolutely  alone.  I 
have  neither  parents,  nor  relatives,  nor  fiancee  —  nobody 
who  cares  for  me.  In  short,  I  am  without  any  personal 
attachments.  And  even  down  there,  you  know,  there 
are  moments  when  it  is  hard  to  have  to  say  that.  But  I 
am  talking  about  things  which  do  not  interest  you." 

She  said  softly  that  they  did  interest  her.  Then  the 
soldier,  after  a  little  hesitation,  ventured  another  ques- 
tion. 

"  Have  you  a  fiance  down  there?  " 

She  shook  her  head  and  her  face  reddened.  They 
stood  there  silent,  both  under  the  spell  of  a  vague  feel- 
ing of  tenderness,  with  which  was  mingled  the  sadness 
of  mourning,  evoked  by  the  poor  souvenirs  which  lay  on 
the  table  between  them.  The  soldier  thought  confusedly 


THE  PROMISE  69 

o*f  the  death  which  he  had  so  narrowly  escaped,  and  he 
had  an  imperious  desire  to  live  and  to  love,  the  image  in 
which  that  desire  flowered  being  that  of  a  budding  young 
girl  with  chestnut  hair.  But  he  did  not  dare  to  put  his 
thoughts  into  words.  He  merely  said: 

"  I  must  go.  But  I  should  like  to  ask  a  favour  of  you 
before  I  go.  Will  you  allow  me  to  tell  a  comrade,  if 
anything  happens  to  me,  to  send  you  some  things  which 
I  shall  leave  behind?  That  will  not  displease  you?  " 

She  looked  at  him,  her  grey  eyes  filled  with  pity  and 
emotion,  and,  trembling  a  little,  answered: 

"  You  will  come  back  —  I  am  sure  you  will  come 
back." 

Hesitating  to  read  the  true  meaning  of  her  look  and 
tone,  he  said  very  softly: 

"I  shall  come  back  — here?" 

She  nodded  assent.  He  took  her  hand,  bent  across  the 
table  on  which  the  little  package  lay  and  awkwardly 
kissed  her  on  the  forehead.  Then  he  went  away  in  the 
dusk,  following  the  path  through  the  woods,  which  smelt 
of  verdure  and  freshly  moistened  earth. 


HOW  THEY  DO  IT 
PIERRE  MILLE 

IN  what  you  are  going  to  read  there  is  nothing  but 
the  reproduction  of  an  actual  experience.  No  fic- 
tion —  no  embellishment.  Only  cruel  and  hard  reality. 

Major  P ,  who  had  just  inspected  the  hospital 

units  of  a  cantonment,  was  about  to  re-enter  his  auto- 
mobile. He  was  walking  along  with  his  nose  in  his  note- 
book, dragging  one  of  his  boots  after  the  other  out  of  the 
clinging  mud  of  the  roadway.  He  was  thinking  of  noth- 
ing in  particular  except  the  tedium  of  the  trip  back  to 
general  headquarters  —  over  a  familiar  route,  against  a 
keen  north  wind  whose  sting  he  could  already  feel  in 
his  nostrils.  Coming  from  a  depot  for  the  wounded  be- 
hind the  lines  he  was  to  make  his  way  to  another  point 
in  the  rear.  That  was  all. 

His  mind  was  not  occupied  with  the  details  of  the  in- 
spection which  he  had  just  made  —  and  made  in  a  ra- 
ther superficial  fashion.  There  was  nothing  out  of  the 
ordinary  run  to  report.  Everything  was  going  along 
about  as  usual  —  not  too  well  and  yet  not  too  badly. 
The  war  would  last.  He  didn't  even  wish  to  guess  how 
long  it  would  last,  judging  that  problem  to  be  insoluble 
70 


HOW  THEY  DO  IT  71 

and  any  mental  effort  expended  on  it  to  be  uselessly  dis- 
turbing. One  must  do  his  best  from  day  to  day  and  think 
as  little  as  possible  of  things  not  brought  to  one's  im- 
mediate attention.  That  was  the  attitude  of  mind  he 
sought  to  cultivate,  gratefully  taking  lessons  from  the 
thousands  of  simple  soldiers  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact, who  had  acquired  instinctively  that  philosophy  of 
acceptance  which  he  could  attain  to  only  by  a  powerful 
effort  of  the  will. 

Suddenly  the  sound  of  a  cannonade,  very  near  him, 
made  him  lift  his  head.  An  artillery  duel  —  so  far 
from  the  contact  trenches,  so  far  from  the  enemy?  At 
that  moment  his  hand  touched  the  door  of  the  auto.  The 
chauffeur,  his  nose  in  the  air,  deeply  interested,  said  to 
him: 

"  They  are  firing  at  a  German  aeroplane,  Major." 

Then  looking  up  into  the  sky  (which  was  very  clear 
that  day  because  of  the  north  wind)  in  the  same  direc- 
tion in  which  the  soldier  was  looking,  he  saw  an  enemy 
observer.  It  was  a  biplane  flying  at  a  height  of  1,500 
to  1,800  metres,  not  seeming  at  all  disquieted  by  the  little 
fleeces  of  white  smoke  which,  with  a  faint,  far-off  sound, 
burst  into  view  about  its  insect  body  —  a  body  like  that 
of  an  exaggerated  dragon-fly.  All  the  gunners  of  the 
cantonment  and  of  the  surrounding  district  were  firing 
incessantly  at  that  aerial  target. 

The  major  shrugged  his  shoulders.     He  had  seen  the 


72        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

same  thing  a  hundred  times  before  and  knew  that  a  hit 
from  the  ground  was  rare  —  almost  impossible.  It  was 
as  if  one  should  try  to  shoot  a  pigeon  with  a  rifle.  Such 
spectacles  were  good  for  the  blues.  But,  for  himself, 
he  was  blase.  He  was  sceptical,  so  far  as  results  went. 
It  was  good  powder  thrown  away  —  much  too  much  good 
powder.  Let  the  enemy  fliers  spy  on  our  lines,  so  long 
as  our  fliers  also  spy  on  theirs.  It 'is  a  game  that  two 
can  play. 

"  Let  us  start,"  he  said  to  the  chauffeur.  "  We  have 
forty  kilometres  to  go." 

Wrapping  himself  in  his  greatcoat,  he  took  his  seat, 
and  the  chauffeur  got  out  to  crank  up.  But  the  cranker 
remained  motionless  in  his  hands. 

"  Major,"  he  said  with  shining  eyes,  "  there's  another 
machine  coming  —  one  of  ours  —  to  give  the  Boches  a 
fight!  " 

The  cantonment  was  situated  in  a  spreading  valley. 
On  one  side  the  hills  which  dominated  it  were  wooded; 
on  the  other  side  they  were  bare.  On  that  side  there  had 
once  been  tilled  fields  —  long  ago,  in  an  epoch  which 
seemed  infinitely  removed,  lost  in  the  shadows  of  time  — 
before  the  war.  The  French  machine  had  mounted  like 
a  sparrow  hawk  from  some  hiding  place  in  the  dark,  mo- 
tionless woods.  It  resembled  a  hawk,  a  bird  of  prey, 
rapid  and  direct,  intrepid  and  slender.  So  very  slender! 
Much  smaller  than  the  enemy,  who  had  not  seen  it  com- 


HOW  THEY  DO  IT  73 

ing  at  first  and  now  attempted  to  escape,  like  a  wild  duck 
or  a  heron  which  flees  before  a  falcon  unhooded  by  the 
hunter. 

"  It  is  a  new  model,"  cried  the  chauffeur,  who  was  very 

excited.  "  I  saw  it  once  before  at  X .  They  showed 

it  to  me.  It  is  driven  by  a  single  operator,  who  ma- 
noeuvres his  machine  gun  with  a  special  device,  so  that 
he  doesn't  have  to  lose  his  direction.  Ah,  that  is  marvel- 
lous! That  is  marvellous!  And  how  fast  he  goes!  He 
could  give  the  Boche  a  handicap  of  thirty  kilometres  an 
hour." 

The  frail  machine,  the  man  who  was  its  brain  and  the 
deadly  mitrailleuse  were  all  one  beautifully  welded  unit. 
They  dashed  ahead,  filling  the  imagination  with  a  sense 
of  almost  illimitable  ferocity.  The  pursued  bird  knew 
now  that  it  was  much  too  late  to  flee,  that  there  was  no 
time  left  to  escape.  It  sought  to  defend  itself.  It  also 
was  armed,  and  one  could  hear  the  crackling  of  its  ma- 
chine gun.  But  the  pursuer  disdained  to  respond.  It 
commenced  to  mount  in  great,  sweeping  circles  —  to 
mount  whirling,  as  does  its  brother,  the  hawk,  when  it 
wishes  to  dominate  and  swoop  down  upon  a  sparrow. 
Not  that  the  French  machine  wished  to  swoop  down. 
Simply  by  taking  advantage  of  its  superior  climbing 
power  it  avoided  the  fire  of  its  antagonist. 

"Look  at  the  Boche!"  shouted  the  chauffeur.  "It 
is  as  if  he  was  weighted  down.  He  cannot  put  a  bullet 


74        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

into  the  Frenchman  now  —  not  a  single  one.  Ah,  if 
only  I  were  not  so  old!  " 

All  the  automobile  mechanicians  —  all  who  know  how 
to  tinker  with  a  motor  —  when  they  have  spent  some 
'time  at  the  front,  dream  of  becoming  aviators.  The 
thing  which  they  drive  disgusts  them,  because  it  cannot 
leave  the  earth. 

And  when  the  hawk-like  machine  had  reached  the 
height  of  its  flight,  determined  in  advance  to  the  second, 
it  inclined  its  body  with  a  cold  and  cruel  precision, 
pointed  its  beak,  the  muzzle  of  its  mitrailleuse,  toward 
the  doomed  sparrow  and  began  to  fire.  The  other  also 
continued  to  fire,  but  at  random  and  to  no  purpose,  head- 
lessly,  like  a  bird  squawking  from  fear. 

All  at  once  the  French  machine  ceased  firing  and  took 
again  to  planing  —  deliberate,  silent,  sinister  and  cer- 
tain, like  the  hawk  which  waits  and  watches.  It  had 
accomplished  its  work.  It  had  now  only  to  wait.  That 
it  knew. 

The  big  German  dragon-fly  tilted  desperately  and,  on 
the  right  side,  the  double  wing  suddenly  broke.  One 
could  hear  nothing;  it  was  too  high  up.  It  broke,  in 
horrible  silence.  Undoubtedly  the  pilot  attempted  to 
restore  the  machine's  balance,  for  the  frame  tilted  sharply 
on  the  other  plane;  and  then,  on  the  other  side,  the  double 
wing  broke.  One  saw  the  vast  pinions  come  together 
like  a  closing  fan.  And  the  machine  fell  —  fell  like  a 


HOW  THEY  DO  IT  75 

stone.  No;  rather  like  a  poor,  wounded  bird,  crippled 
by  a  gunshot  wound. 

The  major  thought  no  longer  of  returning  to  general 
headquarters.  He  said  to  the  chauffeur : 

"  Did  you  see  where  it  fell?     Can  you  track  it  down?  " 

"In  the  woods,  in  the  woods!  "  cried  the  chauffeur, 
turning  his  crank.  "  Certainly  I  can  find  it." 

He  drove  like  a  madman.  Reaching  a  crossroads  in 
the  forest,  he  stopped. 

"  It  is  in  there.  We  must  get  out,"  he  said,  pointing 
to  a  spot  in  behind  the  big,  weather-browned  trees. 

Some  soldiers,  too,  coming  from  no  one  knew  where, 
ran  ahead  of  them  and  showed  the  way. 

Through  the  vault  of  interlaced  branches  the  dead 
aeroplane  had  bored  a  passageway  like  the  track  of  a 
huge  meteor.  One  of  the  two  men  who  had  flown  in  it 
—  probably  the  mechanician  —  had  disappeared  under 
the  motor,  which  had  ploughed  deep  into  the  earth. 

They  loosened  this  heavy  mass  and  it  fell  sidewise  on 
the  ground. 

"  Cover  it  up !  "  cried  a  soldier,  putting  his  hands 
over  his  eyes.  "  Cover  it  up !  " 

The  mechanician  had  had  his  two  thighs  severed,  as 
if  by  some  huge  ax,  by  the  weight  of  the  motor.  The 
trunk  of  his  body  was  only  a  gaping,  frightful,  pulpy 
mass,  with  a  heart  exposed  which  still  beat.  Some  one 
threw  a  cloak  over  the  corpse. 


76        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  And  the  other  one?  "  said  a  soldier.  "  There  were 
two." 

They  found  the  body  of  the  other  German  some  feet 
away.  The  branches  had  caught  him  in  falling  and  torn 
him  from  his  seat.  One  saw  his  breast  rise  and  fall  like 
a  forge  bellows.  Then  he  expired.  The  soldiers  drew 
out  their  knives.  They  wanted  to  divide  among  them- 
selves the  buttons  on  his  uniform. 

"  These  men  died  bravely,"  said  the  major.  "  Respect 
their  remains!  " 

And  because  he  had  shoulder  straps  on  they  obeyed 


"  How  cold  it  is!  "  exclaimed  one  of  the  soldiers. 

And  their  teeth  began  to  chatter  —  there  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  dead. 

"  And  what  became  of  our  flier?  "  asked  one,  in  order 
to  break  the  spell  cast  by  death. 

"  He  has  not  yet  come  down,"  answered  a  comrade. 
"  Maybe  he  thought  there  was  another  job  for  him  to 
do." 

The  next  day,  having  decided  to  pass  the  night  in  the 
cantonment,  the  major  saw  the  aviator  return.  The 
victor  of  the  evening  before  left  his  machine  in  the  fields 
and  came  into  the  hospital  to  warm  his  hands.  He  was 
a  child,  hardly  nineteen  years  old,  with  cheeks  as  downy 
as  a  peach  and  innocent  eyes. 


HOW  THEY  DO  IT  77 

"Well,"   said   the  major,   "you  brought  one  down 

yesterday,  didn't  you?  " 

"  Oh,"  he  answered  carelessly,  "  it  was  my  twelfth." 
And  he  warmed  his  stiffened  fingers  nonchalantly  over 

the  stove. 


THE  APOLOGUE  OF  KADIR  BAKCH 
PIERRE  MILLE 

KADIR  BAKCH  was  khitmatgar,  that  is  to  say,  sub- 
officer,  in  a  regiment  of  Sikhs,  which  fought  on  the 
Yser  in  1914.  One  day  the  major  sent  one  of  the  offi- 
cers of  his  battalion,  a  Lieutenant  Robinson,  with  a  let- 
ter to  the  nearest  French  command.  And  he  said  to 
Kadir  Bakch: 

"  You  will  go  with  him.  If  he  falls,  you  will  pick  up 
the  letter  and  carry  it  to  its  address.  It  must  be  de- 
livered." 

"  That  is  good  talk."  answered  Kadir  Bakch,  whose 
English  was  rather  crude. 

It  happened  that  Lieutenant  Robinson  was  killed  out- 
right by  a  shrapnel  ball,  which  entered  his  left  eye  and 
came  out  through  the  back  of  his  head.  Kadir  Bakch 
had  his  left  shoulder  shattered.  But  that  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  picking  up  the  letter  and  carrying  it  to  the 
French  battalion,  as  he  had  been  ordered  to  do. 

That  is  why  this  Sikh  sub-officer,  although  he  belonged 

to  the  English  army,  was  carried  from  headquarters  a 

few    moments    later    to    one    of    our    hospitals.     They 

thought  that  he  was  too  severely  wounded  to  be  sent 

78 


THE  APOLOGUE  OF  KADIR  BAKCH  79 

back  to  his  corps.  And  he  found  that  his  neighbour  in 
the  hospital  ward  was  Adrien  Vermot,  who  also  spoke 
English. 

"  Your  English  is  much  too  good  for  me,"  declared  the 
khitmatgar.  "  It  is  a  gentleman's  English.  But  that 
will  make  no  difference." 

Then  he  asked  his  neighbour  what  was  the  matter  with 
him.  Such  curiosity  is  natural  with  wounded  men,  even 
if  they  come  from  India. 

"  I  am  going  to  die,"  answered  Vermot,  very  sadly. 

"  Ah !  "  said  Kadir  Bakch,  simply.  It  seemed  to  him 
altogether  natural  that  men  should  die  in  war.  The  news 
did  not  move  him. 

"  I  have  a  bullet  in  the  spinal  marrow,"  the  wounded 
Frenchman  continued.  "  I  can't  move  my  legs  any 
longer.  And  the  paralysis  will  spread.  I  know  —  in 
five  or  six  days.  I  have  no  pain.  Only  I  would  like  to 
see  my  mother." 

It  took  him,  in  fact,  five  or  six  days  to  die,  as  he  had 
said  it  would.  And  at  times  he  was  delirious.  Then 
Kadir  Bakch  did  not  understand  him  at  all,  because  he 
expressed  himself  in  French.  But,  if  he  had  understood, 
he  would  not  have  been  much  better  off.  Adrien  Ver- 
mot begged  for  life,  like  a  child.  He  was  only  twenty- 
two  years  old.  He  said  also  that  he  could  not  under- 
stand death  —  why  he  should  die  —  what  purpose  would 
be  served  by  his  dying.  He  wanted  to  live  to  know 


80        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

whether  he  had  been  the  victor  —  whether  France  had 
won  the  war.  He  wished  to  know  if,  in  truth,  he  had 
or  had  not  died  in  vain  —  a  horrible  question,  which 
men  were  still  to  face  for  so  long  a  time. 

Kadir  Bakch  discovered  that  he  could  soothe  his  neigh- 
bour by  chanting  long  Hindoo  recitatives  in  a  low  voice. 
And  he  did  this  —  at  first  without  any  great  sense  of  pity, 
but  merely  because  it  annoyed  him  to  hear  such  lamenta- 
tions in  a  strange  tongue.  Yet  he  ended  by  loving  the 
dying  man. 

"  He  is  a  sahib,"  thought  the  old  soldier,  "  and  he  is 
just  the  age  of  my  own  son." 

Kadir  Bakch  loved  his  son. 

Finally  Vermot,  who  was  very  weak,  but  now  com- 
pletely conscious,  asked  the  Sikh: 

"What  is  that  you  are  singing?  " 

"  Legends,"  answered  the  khitmatgar.  "  They  are  the 
legends  of  my  country.  People  chant  them  without 
knowing  exactly  what  they  mean.  The  last  one  was  this: 
One  day  Buddha  had  gathered  together  his  disciples. 
They  were  all  seated  on  the  ground,  and  the  disciples 
listened  to  Buddha,  who  was  showing  them  the  way." 

"What  way?  "  asked  the  dying  man. 

"  The  way  to  the  Nirvana  —  to  enjoy  the  supreme  hap- 
piness of  non-existence.  All  at  once  a  terrible  figure 
appeared  before  them.  It  was  Siva,  the  great  god,  my 
god.  See,  I  have  his  sign  tattooed  on  my  forehead.  It 


THE  APOLOGUE  OF  KADIR  BAKCH  81 

was  Siva,  the  unspeakable,  the  Destroyer  and  the  Creator, 
the  Soul  of  the  World  —  the  war  which  kills  and  the  re- 
generator of  men  and  things  through  the  allurements  of 
love.  Male  and  female,  with  three  eyes,  his  throat  blue 
because  he  has  to  poison  himself  drinking  up  the  sea,  all 
the  waters  of  the  sea.  His  body  girdled  with  human 
skulls;  his  head  crowned  with  the  moon  —  the  fecund 
moon. 

"  All  the  disciples  were  blinded.  They  no  longer  saw 
anything;  they  were  enveloped  in  the  blackness  of  night. 
They  were  all  lost  in  the  night  except  Vradzaham,  the 
wisest  of  them,  whose  science  saved  him.  But  he  under- 
stood only  in  part.  He  saw  this  god,  magnificent  and 
terrible,  but  he  did  not  know  who  he  was. 

"  Then,  turning  to  Buddha,  the  omniscient  master,  he 
said: 

"  '  I  know  all  the  stars  and  all  the  divinities,  equal  in 
number  to  the  sands  of  the  Ganges.  But  I  have  never  seen 
this  glorious  being.  Who  is  he?  ' 

"  And  Buddha  answered  him:  *  He  is  yourself.'  " 

"  How  was  that?"  asked  the  dying  man. 

"  Yes,  it  was  so,"  explained  Kadir  Bakch,  very  gravely. 
"  Every  man  contains  in  himself  death  and  regenera- 
tion. But  no  one  realizes  it.  It  requires  an  illumina- 
tion to  know  it.  When  he  had  seen  Siva  and  had  con- 
ceived that  Siva  and  he  were  one,  Vradzaham  entered  into 
the  supreme  blessedness.  I  mean  to  say  that  he  died,  in 


82        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

order  to  escape  reincarnation,  in  order  to  enter  into  the 
Soul  of  the  World.  So  the  legend  tells  us." 

Then  the  eyes  of  Adrien  Vermot,  who  was  about  to 
die,  grew  soft  and  brilliant. 

"  You,  Indian,"  he  said  — "  I  can  hardly  recall  your 
name  —  you,  Indian,  I  have  not  understood  all  this  as 
you  understand  it;  but  I  have  understood.  It  is  France 
which  has  revealed  herself  to  herself  in  this  atrocious  war. 
She  has  faced  it  and  she  has  not  faltered.  She  has  faced 
it  and  she  has  recognized  herself  in  me  —  in  me,  who  am 
about  to  die,  in  all  those  who  are  to  die.  I  can  go  now. 
I  know." 

"Sahib,"  asked  the  old  Khitmatgar  — "  Sahib,  who 
resemble  my  son,  do  you  still  want  to  see  your  mother?  " 

"  Yes,  I  should  like  to  see  her,"  answered  Vermot,  very 
calmly.  "  I  would  repeat  to  her  what  you  have  said. 
What  an  extraordinary  thing  this  is  that  you  have  told 
me!  And  I  believe  that  you  believe  it,  too." 

"I?  It  is  possible,"  said  the  khitmatgar.  "All  the 
world  does  not  understand  the  sense  of  the  prayers  which 
it  says.  But  the  sense  is  in  the  prayers.  Sahib,  shall  I 
call  the  woman  in  the  blouse,  that  she  may  give  you  the 
injection  which  causes  sleep?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  wounded  man,  submissively. 

And  soon  after  that  he  died. 


THE  MAN  WHO  WAS  AFRAID 
PIERRE  MILLE 

Eis  impossible  for  me  to  tell  you  why  the  soldier 
Cruchard  was  a  victim  of  fear  —  of  a  fear  which 
never  showed  any  abatement,  which  had  not  quitted  him 
for  a  day,  or  an  hour,  or  a  minute  in  the  six  months  which 
he  had  been  at  the  front.  It  might,  if  you  reflect  on  it, 
be  more  natural  to  put  the  question  the  other  way  and 
to  wonder  how  it  can  happen  that  among  three  million 
men  there  are  so  few  who  are  afraid,  or  so  many,  at 
least,  who  know  how  to  conquer  fear.  Remember  that 
before  this  war  they  were  all  like  you  and  me  —  that 
they  were  afraid  of  the  dark  and  its  mysteries  when  they 
were  children;  that  later  they  were  afraid  of  the  deep 
water,  of  the  fire  which  burned,  of  the  horses  which 
dashed  by  them  in  the  streets;  of  bad  dogs,  of  pain,  of 
death,  of  things  with  which  they  were  unfamiliar  or  which 
they  knew  only  too  well.  They  were  like  you,  like  me, 
like  all  the  world. 

And,  all  of  a  sudden,  here  are  these  three  million  men 
precipitated  into  the  midst  of  the  most  frightful  and 
most  general  cataclysm  the  world  has  ever  known.  What 
is  the  ferocity  of  nature  compared  with  that  of  man? 
And  with  what  feeble  means  nature  works  compared  with 


84        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

those  which  man  employs!  What  is  the  destruction  of 
St.  Pierre  in  Martinique  by  the  volcano  of  Mount  Pelee, 
which  cost  only  forty  thousand  lives  —  the  price  of  a 
single  battle  in  this  war  which  has  lasted  for  more  than 
three  years  and  a  half  —  what  is  the  wrecking  of  Messina 
by  an  earthquake  alongside  the  hurricane  of  shells  which 
for  the  last  forty-two  months  has  pounded,  ground,  re- 
duced to  impalpable  dust  hundreds  of  villages  and  towns, 
and  then  hundreds  more? 

And  yet  we  see  these  three  million  men,  who  resemble 
you  and  me,  face  each  day  this  terror,  without  succumb- 
ing to  it.  See  how  these  men,  day  after  day,  with  their 
muddy  feet,  with  their  miry  feet  set  in  the  paths  of  glory, 
trample  down  and  master  the  most  legitimate  and  primi- 
tive of  instincts  —  the  first  to  be  born,  the  last  to  dis- 
appear—  the  instinct  of  self-preservation. 

Explain  this  miracle  as  you  will.  Invoke  discipline, 
invoke  patriotism,  contagion  of  example  and  familiarity 
with  danger,  the  treasures  of  energy  and  abnegation  ac- 
cumulated by  the  race,  the  will  of  intelligence  triumph- 
ing over  the  hesitations  of  the  flesh  —  it  remains  none 
the  less  a  miracle. 

Only  the  miracle  was  not  produced  in  Cruchard's  case. 
Let  us  assume  that  the  others  are  super-men.  He  re- 
mained only  a  natural  human  being  —  and  therefore 
nothing  very  much  to  boast  about. 


THE  MAN  WHO  WAS  AFRAID         85 

Perhaps  he  had  begun  wrong.  I  once  had  a  dog  like 
that,  in  whose  ears  some  one  had  foolishly  discharged  a 
gun  the  first  day  he  was  taken  out  to  hunt.  He  retained 
an  insurmountable  horror  of  firearms.  When  he  saw  a 
gun  he  slunk  away,  his  tail  between  his  legs  and  hid  in 
a  cellar  or  a  garret. 

The  events  of  the  war,  the  first  time  he  mixed  into 
them,  produced  the  same  effect  on  Cruchard.  He  never 
recovered  from  his  first  fit  of  fear.  On  the  contrary,  its 
effects  seemed  to  magnify  with  every  new  and  disagree- 
able experience  to  which  he  was  subjected.  So  that  he 
reached  the  point  not  only  of  saying  that  he  was  afraid 
when  he  had  reasons  to  be  afraid  and  to  conduct  himself 
accordingly,  but  of  talking  about  his  fear  when  the  causes 
of  it  had  provisionally  disappeared;  of  living  in  an  an- 
guish of  dangers  to  come,  of  groaning  and  trembling  by 
day,  of  trembling  and  groaning  by  night.  He  was  not 
simply  a  useless  soldier  and  a  bad  soldier.  He  was  a 
dangerous  and  demoralizing  soldier.  He  spread  the 
contagion  of  his  own  panic. 

They  tried  punishing  him.  He  decided,  without  con- 
cealment, that  no  punishment  could  be  equal  to  the  dis- 
comfort of  doing  the  things  which  could  save  him  from 
punishment.  His  superiors  tried  to  play  on  his  feelings. 
They  appealed  to  his  honour,  to  his  pride.  But  in  vain. 
He  answered: 

"  What  would  you  have?     I  am  afraid.     That  is  a 


86        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

thing  one  cannot  help.  And  I  shall  die  of  fear  —  that 
is  certain.  But  it  is  still  more  certain  that  I  would  ra- 
ther die  of  fear  than  by  a  bullet,  by  the  explosion  of  a 
shrapnel  or  a  bomb,  or  by  a  320  shell,  or  any  other  of 
those  miserable  contrivances  which  make  such  a  terri- 
fying noise.  Oh!  that  noise!  I  want  to  get  away  from 
it." 

His  only  intrepidity  was  that  of  obstinacy.  It  ended 
by  wearing  out  opposition.  They  had  some  scruples 
about  shooting  such  a  poor  devil.  You  see,  too,  that  he 
never  absolutely  refused  to  obey.  He  merely  said  that 
he  was  afraid  and  that  it  was  impossible  for  any  one  to 
discharge  one's  duty  when  he  was  in  a  state  of  terror  all 
the  time.  The  colonel,  to  whom  the  case  was  submitted, 
finally  said: 

"What  does  this  man  do  in  civil  life?  " 

They  looked  up  his  record  and  found  that  he  was  a 
baker's  apprentice. 

"  Well,"  said  the  colonel,  "  why  not  make  a  baker  out 
of  him?  Send  him  into  the  military  bakeshop  —  any- 
where, only  so  he  leaves  us  in  peace." 


That  is  how  Cruchard  won  his  personal  victory  before 
the  Allied  armies  won  theirs.  He  kneaded  pans  of 
dough,  put  them  in  the  oven  and  took  them  out  again 
and  declared  himself  completely  satisfied.  Unfortu- 


THE  MAN  WHO  WAS  AFRAID         87 

nately  there  was  a  change  in  administration.  One  re- 
sult of  this  change  was  to  revive  the  soldier  Cruchard's 
mental  agony  and  his  creepings  of  the  flesh.  An  order 
came  which  sent  back  to  the  front,  to  the  first  line,  all  the 
men  of  his  class. 

This  period  of  pacific  repose  had  not  altered  his  soul. 
Cruchard  asked  on  arriving  at  the  front: 

"Is  it  always  bad  here?  " 

"  Worse  than  ever,"  they  told  him.  "  Those  pigs  are 
always  inventing  something  new.  One  has  no  longer  a 
minute  of  tranquillity.  The  sector  is  becoming  disgust- 
ing. You  have  only  to  look  at  the  ground." 

As  far  as  his  eyes  could  see  the  soil  was  torn  up,  to  a 
depth  of  eighteen  feet,  as  by  the  wheels  of  some  gigantic 
chariot.  And  it  continues  its  work  —  the  chariot. 
Great  shells  buried  themselves  in  the  fearful  mixture  of 
slime,  blood  and  corpses  and  then  burst  under  the  mass 
with  enormous  rumblings.  It  was  as  if  the  globe,  the 
whole  globe,  had  a  stomachache  and  was  revenging  it- 
self by  crushing  the  little  human  beings  who  were  lying 
flat  on  its  surface.  Cruchard  felt  deathly  sick. 

"  I  want  to  get  away  from  here,"  he  said.  "  This  is 
no  sensible  place  to  be.  It  is  no  place  to  stay.  They 
sent  me  to  the  rear.  They  found  that  it  was  just  and 
useful  to  give  me  a  good  place  in  the  rear.  They  had 
no  right  to  change  their  minds." 

"  Old  man,"  his  comrades  told  him,  with  a  sort  of 


88        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

compassion,  "  it's  all  in  the  day's  work.  You're  here 
and  you'll  have  to  stay  here.  It  is  the  same  thing  with 
everybody." 

"  But  it  oughtn't  to  be  the  same  thing  with  everybody. 
As  for  me,  I  tell  you  that  I'm  afraid." 

But  they  only  shrugged  their  shoulders.  As  if  being 
afraid  made  any  difference! 


Weeks  passed  and  Cruchard's  terror  increased.  One 
day  he  reached  a  decision,  all  in  a  shiver: 

"  There  is  nothing  else  to  do.  I  must  write  to  my 
sister." 

They  joked  with  him. 

"Who  is  she,  your  sister?  Is  she  the  foster  mother 
of  Lyautey?  The  cook  of  Poincare?  The  cousin  of 
the  King  of  Montenegro?  And  even,  you  know,  if  she 
were  all  these  at  once " 

But  that  didn't  prevent  him  from  announcing  pres- 
ently: 

"I've  done  it  I'm  not  going  to  stay  here.  I  have 
written  to  my  sister." 

They  thought  that  his  fright  had  made  him  a  little 
foolish.  But  one  morning  an  order  arrived  at  head- 
quarters. The  soldier  Cruchard  was  demobilized.  He 
was  the  only  person  whom  this  news  did  not  surprise. 
He  contented  himself  with  saying: 


THE  MAN  WHO  WAS  AFRAID         89 

"  That  was  only  natural,  inasmuch  as  I  had  written  to 
my  sister." 

They  surrounded  him.  I  am  obliged  to  say  that  they 
envied  him.  He  had  become  a  personage,  since  he  had 
done  a  thing  which  they  considered  impossible.  The 
most  stringent  laws  were  waived  in  his  favour.  And 
who,  then,  was  this  all-powerful  sister?  He  told  them: 

"  Her  husband  is  a  cattle  feeder.     At  Clamart." 

"  What  of  that?  " 

"  For  a  long  time  she  pursued  me  to  do  it.  She  said 
to  me :  *  It  is  your  opportunity.  If  you  want  to  get 
away  here  is  your  chance.  Marry  Jules's  cousin.'  But 
that  didn't  appeal  to  me.  I  must  confess  that  she  is  not 
appetizing.  I  should  have  preferred  some  other  way. 
All  the  same,  when  I  saw  how  it  was  here  I  thought: 
'  Anything  is  better  than  this  life.'  And  I  wrote  to  my 
sister :  '  Marry  her.  Marry  her  at  once  for  me  —  by 
proxy.'  It  seems  that  she  did  so,  for  I  am  demobilized." 

"  But  what  had  the  fact  that  you  married  the  lady  to 
do  with  demobilization?  " 

"I  was  just  going  to  tell  you,"  explained  Cruchard, 
with  a  sigh.  "  She  is  a  widow,  with  three  girls  and 
three  boys.  So  I  have  been  demobilized  as  the  father  of 
six  children." 

And  this  story  is  really  true. 


THE  SOLDIER  WHO  CONQUERED  SLEEP 
PIERRE  MILLE 

HE  was  a  little  sergeant,  very  young,  undoubtedly  of 
the  class  of  1914.  Pinned  to  his  coat  he  wore  the 
Croix  de  Guerre.  At  the  sight  of  the  captain,  alongside 
of  whom  I  was  walking  the  afternoon  of  one  of  the  last 
Sundays  in  July,  he  saluted  hurriedly.  It  was  not  on  his 
part  the  ordinary  salute  imposed  by  discipline  —  the 
salute  which  every  subordinate  owes  to  his  superior. 
These  two  men  knew  each  other.  I  recognized  that  fact 
from  the  warmth  of  the  gesture.  I  recognized  it  also 
from  the  manner  in  which  the  officer  responded  to  the 
homage  of  the  youthful  soldier.  He  stopped  and  began 
a  conversation: 

"  Well,  my  boy,  are  you  on  leave?  " 

The  face  of  the  young  sub-officer  lighted  up.  It  be- 
came sublime  in  its  enthusiasm,  its  devotion,  its  admira- 
tion, its  gratitude  and  its  love  —  yes,  in  its  love.  We 
had  the  right,  before  the  war,  to  believe  that  the  visage 
of  a  very  young  man  could  be  transfigured  only  by  a 
meeting  with  the  first  woman  he  has  ever  loved.  Today 
we  know  better.  We  know  that  a  young  man  will  never 
give  himself  as  completely  to  a  woman  as  to  a  chief 


SOLDIER  WHO  CONQUERED  SLEEP    91 

whom  he  has  recognized  on  the  field  of  battle  to  be  really 
a  chief. 

It  is  necessary  to  describe  things  as  they  are.  If  a 
man  vows  to  a  woman,  on  a  certain  occasion,  that  he  is 
ready  to  die  for  her,  it  is  very  seldom  that  she  puts  him 
under  any  obligation  to  perform  that  supreme  sacrifice. 
But  that  same  oath  is  the  basis  of  military  discipline. 
And  in  the  latter  case  it  must  be  kept.  And  it  is  kept. 

So  this  injunction  of  fatal  self-abnegation  is  all  the 
more  certain  to  embody  itself  in  some  particular  being, 
chosen  because  of  one  knows  not  what  mysterious  quali- 
ties —  a  man  who  possesses,  sometimes  unwittingly,  the 
gift  of  authority  and  of  whom  those  who  follow  him 
say:  "We  will  die  for  him!  "  That  love  — the  love 
of  the  soldier  for  his  chief  —  is  the  highest  of  all  loves. 
Women  can  never  help  being  jealous  of  it. 

The  little  sub-officer  had  blushed  with  joy.  He  stam- 
mered : 

"  Yes,  my  captain,  I  am  on  leave.  Yes,  my  captain. 
And  you,  too,  as  I  see!  That  gives  me  pleasure!  " 

He  was  incapable  of  expressing  himself  any  more 
clearly.  And  I  felt  that  what  he  meant  to  say  was: 

"  It  gives  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  see  that  you  are 
still  alive,  as  I  am  —  more  pleasure,  indeed,  than  to  know 
that  I  am  still  alive." 

"  Do  you  still  recite  Latin  verses,  you  young  intel- 
lectual? "  asked  the  captain. 


92        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

The  sub-officer  had  the  air  of  not  understanding. 
Perhaps  he  didn't  catch  the  point. 

"And  they  have  given  you  that,"  continued  the  cap- 
tain, putting  his  finger  on  the  Croix  de  Guerre.  "  That 
will  go  well  later  on  your  frock  coat  when  you  are  a 
professor." 

"  Oh,  my  captain,"  said  the  boy,  "  you  know  very  well 
that  it  was  you  —  that  you  are  the  one  to  whom  I  owe 
it." 

"  My  boy,"  answered  the  captain,  "  the  decisions  of 
the  military  tribunals  are  always  right  Good-bye." 

"  That  little  fellow,"  said  the  captain  to  me,  "  is  natu- 
rally chic.  He  is  about  the  best  I  have  in  my  company. 
On  one  occasion  he  was  magnificent.  And  no  one  will 
ever  know  about  it  if  I  don't  tell  you  the  story.  It  is 
I  who  framed  the  recommendation  on  which  he  received 
that  cross;  and  the  recommendation  was  untrue.  A  lie 
from  beginning  to  end,  I  repeat.  Yet  I  could  not  do 
otherwise. 

"  You  understand  what  a  '  tir  de  barrage  '  is?  When 
an  attack  is  launched  the  enemy  establishes  in  advance 
of  the  position  assaulted  a  curtain  of  projectiles  —  a 
curtain  which  ought  to  be  maintained,  if  the  supply  of 
munitions  lasts  long  enough,  until  the  physical,  and  espe- 
cially the  moral,  forces  of  the  adversary  are  exhausted. 
It  is  a  curtain  of  steel  against  which  he  is  going  to  hurl 
himself,  if  he  has  the  energy  to  complete  his  advance. 


SOLDIER  WHO  CONQUERED  SLEEP    93 

"  The  first  lines  of  the  attack  melt  away.  The  others 
have  to  lie  down  and  wait.  That  is  where  courage  is  re- 
quired —  for  lying  down  and  waiting.  Less  well  in 
hand,  less  determined  to  die  rather  than  not  reach  their 
goal,  the  troops  recoil.  There  is  nothing  else  to  do  but 
to  begin  over  again,  if  one  can. 

"  That  little  blond  whom  you  have  just  seen  was  then 
only  a  corporal.  He  had  been  with  my  company  but 
two  months  when  he  set  out  with  his  section  to  carry  the 

trenches  at  N .  The  other  section  was  in  support 

and  I  accompanied  it. 

"  Many  things  happened.  The  bombardment  was 
frightful.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  attack  had  failed. 
Our  losses  were  severe,  most  of  the  officers  being  dis- 
abled. I  was  astonished  to  come  through  myself  with- 
out a  scratch.  As  they  often  tell  me,  I  must  be  *  var- 
nished.' But  what  astonished  me  more,  and  greatly  up- 
set me,  was  not  to  see  the  other  section  come  back.  It 
had  completely  disappeared.  It  was  impossible  for  me 
to  distinguish  the  place  which  it  had  occupied,  or  even 
to  guess  where  the  section  was.  For  it  no  longer  fired  a 
shot.  There  was  no  sign  of  a  man.  Had  it  been  cap- 
tured in  a  body?  Or  worse? 

"  Finally  I  decided  to  go  forward  myself  and  hunt 
for  it.  The  route  was  not  comfortable.  But  at  last  I 
arrived.  I  arrived,  and  I  must  tell  you  that  it  is  a  dis- 
agreeable, an  infinitely  disagreeable,  sensation  to  ap- 


94        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

proach,  all  alone  and  in  cold  blood,  a  hell  which  one  has 
quitted  only  a  short  time  before,  when  one  was  sur- 
rounded by  his  men,  when  one  still  had  hopes  of  success, 
when,  in  a  word,  one  was  in  the  heat  of  an  attack. 

"  When  I  discovered  the  section  which  I  was  seeking 
I  saw  that  it  was  on  the  inner  edge  of  that  abominable 
curtain  of  fire,  of  monstrous  explosions  and  of  death, 
having  attempted  in  vain  to  recross  it.  And  when  I  said 
hell,  a  moment  ago,  I  meant  what  I  said.  There  was  the 
rending  and  tearing  of  the  hundreds  of  big  shells,  which 
cut  away  like  razors  or  crush  like  hammers  everything 
they  strike  —  stones,  trees  or  men.  There  were  the  dis- 
placements of  the  air  caused  by  the  explosions,  which 
loosen  the  muscles  from  the  chest,  which  can  kill  one  in 
an  instant  by  stopping  the  beating  of  the  heart.  And 
there  was  the  incessant  and  fearful  din.  The  displace- 
ments of  the  air,  as  I  told  you,  can  arrest  the  movements 
of  the  heart.  The  noise,  the  shock  of  the  noise,  is  pow- 
erful enough  to  halt  the  mechanism  of  the  brain. 

"  The  section  was  there,  almost  intact.  It  seemed  to 
lack  not  more  than  fifteen  men.  But  those  whom  I 
saw  —  the  survivors,  the  entire  remnant  —  were  they  not 
dead?  Lying  in  the  brushwood,  and  especially  in  the 
holes  dug  by  the  big  shells,  they  seemed  inert;  they 
made  no  movement.  Crawling  behind  the  brushwood, 
almost  flat  on  my  stomach,  I  ran  across  a  trench  where 
some  one  was  evidently  still  alive  and  stirring. 


SOLDIER  WHO  CONQUERED  SLEEP    95 

"  It  was  the  boy  whom  you  just  saw,  the  corporal  of 
the  class  of  1914,  come  from  the  Sorbonne  or  the  Nor- 
mal, I  don't  remember  which.  He  was  making  very 
queer  motions,  as  if  he  was  forcing  himself  to  gesticu- 
late. And  at  the  same  time  he  was  mumbling  incompre- 
hensible things.  At  the  moment  when  I  came  upon  him 
he  was  declaiming: 

Et  jam  nox  humida  coela 
Praecipitat  suadentque  cadentia  sidera  somnos. 

"  I  had  gone  through  the  Lyceum  and  I  recognized 
Virgil.  He  stopped  short  when  he  saw  me  and  blushed 
a  little,  at  the  same  time,  I  thought,  lifting  his  eyes  to  me 
with  an  absolute  confidence  —  eyes  which  were  deli- 
ciously  clear. 

" '  How  about  the  others?  '  I  asked. 

"  '  Lieutenant  D.  is  dead.  Lieutenant  V.  is  wounded. 
The  adjutant  is  wounded.  The  men?  The  men  are 
asleep,  my  captain.  I  didn't  want  them  to  go  back.  But 
I  couldn't  prevent  them  from  going  to  sleep,  because  of 
the  noise.' 

"  And  that  was  true.  It  is  an  effect  of  this  incessant 
cannonading  —  of  this  thunder  that  racks  the  brain  — 
that  it  reduces  one  internally  to  a  sort  of  pulp.  A  new 
means  for  hypnotizers  to  put  their  subjects  to  sleep  with, 
but  a  very  costly  one.  Men  sleep  in  spite  of  themselves, 
as  in  hypnosis  or  delirium. 

"'And  you? 'I  said. 


96        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  *  When  I  saw  that,'  he  answered,  '  I  thought  that  the 
essential  thing  was  to  stay  here.  I  said  to  them: 
"  Sleep.  For  me  I  will  see  to  it  that  I  don't  go  to  sleep. 
And  that  will  be  all  that  I  shall  need  to  do."  And  I  did 
see  to  it.  I  made  gestures,  I  talked  and  I  recited.' 

"  In  that  way  he  held  the  section  there  —  this  boy.  I 
reflected  a  moment,  and  then  dashed  off  an  order  on  a 
sheet  of  my  notebook. 

"  *  I  shall  watch  now,'  I  said  to  him.  '  Carry  this  to 
the  rear.  Our  advance  must  not  be  lost.' 

"  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  ground  conquered  on 
that  side  was  preserved  for  us.  But  when  I  wanted  to 
recommend  this  boy  for  mention  in  the  regimental  order 
of  the  day  I  saw  that  I  could  never  tell  the  truth  — 
never!  On  paper,  you  see,  all  this  would  have  a  semi- 
comic  air.  And  how  to  invent  some  variant  of  it?  No, 
it  wasn't  possible.  It  wasn't  possible. 

"  So  I  wrote: 

" '  He  contributed  to  hold  the  ground  won  by  the  sec- 
tion, all  of  whose  officers  had  been  disabled,  by  encour- 
aging it  during  the  long  hours  by  voice  and  gestures.' 

"  A  pure  fiction,  was  it  not,  from  beginning  to  end  ? 
But  you  will  admit  that  he  earned  them  all  the  same  — 
his  citation  and  his  cross." 


THE  GODMOTHER 
MME.  LUCIE  DELARUE-MADRUS 

WITH  a  sigh  Geo  loosened  the  package  of  letters 
which  the  Bureau  of  Good  Works  was  in  the  habit 
of  sending  her  each  week.  Too  delicate  for  hospital 
work,  she  had  tried  many  other  things  since  1914  before 
deciding  upon  her  true  function  in  the  Great  War.  At 
last  she  had  discovered  her  proper  role.  It  was  to  be 
herself  a  correspondent  and  to  find  other  correspond- 
ents for  soldiers  who  wish  to  have  godmothers,  longing 
for  the  little  blue  postage  stamp  which  so  brightens  the 
sombre  life  of  the  trenches. 

Patiently  Geo  began  to  read  the  letters.  About  her 
the  dismantled  condition  of  her  studio  showed  that  she 
had  painted  little  or  nothing  in  the  last  three  years.  A 
cushion  fell  to  the  floor;  the  cat  moved  over  on  the  divan 
closer  to  her  mistress.  Then  the  old  serving  woman 
entered  to  carry  away  the  tea  tray  —  the  little  solitary 
tea  which  the  young  woman  had  taken  while  continuing 
to  read  the  soldiers'  missives  —  a  task  which  she  always 
found  extremely  interesting. 

Those  who  have  never  been  able  to  have  children 
often  care  for  orphans  in  order  to  appease  their  heart 
97 


98        TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

emptiness.  Geo  wrote  to  the  poilus  so  as  to  feel  that 
she  had  some  one  at  the  front. 

To  have  some  one  at  the  front,  some  one  for  whom  to 
tremble,  some  one  to  grow  tender  over  or  to  take  pride 
in  —  that  is  today  a  prime  necessity  for  the  feminine 
heart.  A  woman  of  our  time  suffers  if  she  is  not  on  an 
equality  in  this  respect  with  all  the  others.  To  be  like 
the  others  —  that  is  also  a  form  of  Sacred  Union.  Our 
feelings  are  the  same,  whether  death  is  concerned  or 
glory.  Joy  and  grief  are  shared  equally.  That  is  why 
the  sorrows  of  war,  despite  its  horror,  are  perhaps  lighter 
to  bear  than  the  sorrows  of  peace.  No  woman  today 
feels  isolated,  whatever  may  be  her  misfortune  or  her 
happiness.  There  is  among  women  a  new  mental  war 
mood,  which  has  all  the  authority  of  an  established 
fashion. 

Geo,  alone  in  her  class,  suffered  in  solitude.  All 
those  letters  to  which  she  wrote  answers  were  tinged  with 
a  sense  of  unreality.  Twenty  godsons  were  not  worth 
one  husband. 

Wearily  she  let  fall  into  her  lap  the  letter  which  she 
was  reading.  Her  big  grey  eyes  stared  at  vacancy;  her 
hand  brushed  back  from  her  brow  a  tangle  of  henna- 
coloured  curls. 

"  What  in  the  world  has  become  of  him?  " 

She  reviewed  her  short  life.  She  was  now  a  little  more 
than  twenty-eight  years  old.  She  could  have  been,  like 


THE  GODMOTHER  99 

the  others,  a  wife  and  a  mother.  Married  before  she 
was  twenty  to  a  good  and  attractive  man,  who  chose  her 
because  he  loved  her,  she  had  not  then  truly  understood 
her  destiny. 

It  was  an  epoch  —  that  before  the  war  —  when  people 
talked  much  about  "  living  their  lives."  That  formula 
meant  a  good  many  things  to  a  good  many  persons.  It 
covered  exploits  even  more  venturesome  than  those  of 
a  little  personage  like  Geo. 

Geo  was  called  at  that  time  Mme.  Charles  Bouvier, 
and  one  can  well  believe  that  that  simple  designation 
and  status  hardly  satisfied  her  ambitions.  Having  mar- 
ried in  order  to  obtain  her  freedom  (for  she  was,  after 
all,  too  honest  and  too  conventional  to  quit  her  family 
and  live  all  alone) ,  she  had  opposed  to  the  loyal  tender- 
ness of  her  good  fellow  of  a  husband  the  bold  laugh  — 
the  Nietzschean  laugh  —  of  the  epoch. 

Sentiment?     Husband?     Children?     Home? 

The  young  wife  had  genius,  so  she  thought.  A  year 
after  her  marriage  she  rented  a  studio.  And  because 
she  was  entering  her  twentieth  year,  like  all  other  young 
girls  of  that  age  her  conception  of  the  future  was  pre- 
cise and  unalterable.  That  age  has  no  soul,  just  as  a 
new  house  has  none.  It  still  smells  of  the  plaster. 

The  little  wife,  like  so  many  others,  constructed  her 
life  according  to  her  own  ideas,  as  if  one  could  fabri- 
cate it  out  of  hand.  Her  only  thought  was  to  break,  to 


100      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

slash  and  to  turn  things  upside  down.  At  twenty-three 
she  was  divorced.  Her  husband,  wearied  and  broken, 
had  disappeared  completely  from  her  life. 

She  was  free!  She  dropped  her  married  name  and 
even  her  family  name.  She  became  Geo.  As  Geo,  sim- 
ply, she  aspired  to  fame  and  glory. 

Naturally  there  was  no  question  of  love  in  the  case. 
Does  one  yield  to  sentiment,  or  even  to  sensuality,  when 
one  is  determined  to  live  one's  own  life?  Geo,  quite 
alone,  facing  her  own  future,  her  dowry  recovered, 
wedded  her  art. 

War. 

Besides  transforming  the  five  parts  of  the  world,  it  is 
going,  according  to  circumstances,  to  disarrange  and  re- 
arrange everything,  even  in  the  smallest  cells  of  the  so- 
cial beehive.  Like  an  acid,  it  is  going  to  cause  dissolu- 
tion in  one  place  and  precipitation  in  another. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1914,  Geo  suddenly  realized 
that  she  had  no  talent  and  had  been  living  in  a  world 
of  self-deception.  Her  parents  were  dead.  She  had 
lost  track  of  her  former  husband.  With  all  the  violence 
«f  the  moral  revulsion  which  had  laid  hold  of  her,  with 
all  the  romantic  feeling  with  which  the  first  months  of 
the  war  were  impregnated,  she  multiplied  her  efforts  to 
get  in  touch  once  more  with  her  divorce.  He  was  a  sol- 
dier —  he,  too  —  and  as  such  she  knew  that  he  would 
prove  a  hero. 


THE  GODMOTHER  101 

A  hero!  But  her  efforts  were  vain.  Perhaps  he  had 
fallen  in  love  with  another  woman;  perhaps  he  had  been 
killed  or  taken  prisoner. 

Geo  takes  up  again  the  letter,  the  reading  of  which  had 
been  interrupted  by  her  long  reverie.  Once  more  she 
sighs: 

"  This  lieutenant  here,  I  know  to  whom  I  shall  turn 
him  over.  Yes,  she  is  just  the  sort  of  person  he  needs." 

Another  envelope  opened;  another  letter  unfolded. 

"  Ladies,  I  am  ashamed  to  address  myself  to  your 
bureau.  To  deliver  one's  soul  to  an  agency,  even  an 
agency  as  discreet  as  yours  —  it  is  horrible.  But  I  am 
so  lonely,  ladies  —  doubly  lonely  amid  the  terrors  of 
war;  doubly  lonely  because  I  formerly  dreamed  myself 
a  dream  of  happiness.  If  she  whom  I  loved  and  who  for 
three  years  was  my  wife  had  understood  me " 

With  trembling  hands  Geo  almost  tears  the  page,  so 
eagerly  does  she  turn  it  in  order  to  see  the  signature. 
Among  the  numerals  and  abbreviations  it  is  there  —  this 
perfectly  legible,  electrifying  signature: 

"  Adjutant  Charles  Bouvier." 

Geo  jumps  to  her  feet.  Erect,  she  resumes  her  reading, 
while  the  cat,  awakened  with  a  start,  yawns  and  stretches 
on  the  divan. 

"  Find  me  a  correspondent  —  a  friend  to  whom  I  can 
tell  my  troubles.  I  cannot  keep  them  to  myself  any 
longer.  My  parents  died  when  I  was  a  child.  I  have 


102      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

neither  brother  nor  sister.  It  is  said:  'It  is  not  good 
for  man  to  be  alone.'  For  five  years  I  have  been  alone. 
I  cannot  endure  it  any  longer.  But  now  that  my  life  is 
in  perpetual  danger,  I  need  more  than  ever  a  soul  linked 
with  my  own  —  with  my  soul,  so  menaced  in  this  frail 
habitat  of  a  soldier's  body.  And  then,  I  have  just  re- 
ceived the  Croix  de  Guerre.  It  is  so  melancholy  that 
there  is  no  one  to  be  proud  of  me." 

"Quick,  my  pen!     Quick,  my  ink!  " 

Geo  has  no  married  name  and  no  family  name.  But 
she  needs  no  other  name  than  Geo  to  be  a  godmother  to 
soldiers.  No  one  was  likely  to  know  her,  in  spite  of  her 
painting.  Nor  will  she  need  to  disguise  her  handwriting. 
Did  she  recognize  at  once  her  former  husband's  hand- 
writing? 

"  Monsieur  PAdjutant,  I  wish  to  be  your  godmother. 
For  I  also  am  lonely  and  broken  in  spirit.  But  I  must 
make  one  condition.  It  is  that  you  shall  not  know  my 
real  name.  For  you  I  shall  be  Geo  and  nothing  else. 
And  you  can  tell  me  all  the  wrongs  that  have  been  done 
to  you.  I  shall  understand  them,  believe  me,  better 
than  anybody  else." 

Pen  in  air,  the  young  wife  smiles  sadly,  tenderly. 
Then  she  bends  over  and  continues  her  letter.  And  her 
fingers  tremble  constantly  as  she  writes. 


THE  GODMOTHER  — II 
MME.  LUCIE  DELARUE-MADRUS 

T  HAVE  already  told  you  how  Geo,  divorced,  became 
A  by  the  merest  accident  the  godmother  of  her  poor 
husband,  that  lawful  adorer  of  whom,  before  the  war, 
she  had  disembarrassed  herself  so  quickly,  with  all  the 
unconscious  cruelty  of  youth,  in  order  "  to  live  her  own 
life,"  as  so  many  others  do. 

Now  the  correspondence  between  them  is  well  estab- 
lished. Adjutant  Charles  Bouvier  doesn't  know  that  the 
godmother  to  whom  he  writes  with  so  much  ardour  is  his 
former  wife.  He  doesn't  know  her  name  or  her  age, 
since  it  was  on  that  condition  that  she  agreed  to  accept 
him  as  a  godson. 

Geo,  alone  as  usual  in  her  studio,  where  she  has  not 
painted  since  the  war  began,  settles  down  to  open  the 
thick  military  letter,  a  letter  weighted  with  the  self- 
revelations  of  an  unknown  soul,  an  unknown  soul  which 
is  also  the  soul  of  her  ex-husband. 

From  habit  rather  than  from  desire  she  begins  by  light- 
ing a  cigarette.  Then  she  installs  herself  on  the  divan 
and  passes  her  right  hand  carelessly  through  her  short, 
henna-stained  curls.  At  twenty-eight  there  is  no  neces- 
sity for  colouring  them.  But  the  henna  is  a  detail  in  the 
103 


104      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

Latin  Quarter  make-up  which  Geo,  in  spite  of  her  dissat- 
isfaction with  it,  has  not  yet  reached  the  point  of  giving 
up.  Women  who  have  no  children  often  become  their 
own  dolls;  and  that  leads  them  into  extravagances  and 
eccentricities. 

"My  godmother,  you  asked  me  in  your  last  letter  to 
tell  you  what  I  think  of  women,  since  I  speak  of  them  all 
the  time  and  neglect  to  write  you  anything  about  the 
war.  Such  a  curiosity  on  your  part  leads  me  to  believe 
that  you  are  still  young,  in  spite  of  all  your  bitterness. 
And  that  thought  delights  me,  because  one  can  never  be 
truly  understood  except  by  his  contemporaries.  Chil- 
dren love  the  company  of  other  children.  Young  people 
love  the  society  of  young  people,  and  so  on.  As  for  me, 
I  am  now  entering  my  second  youth;  and  so  are  you,  it 
seems  to  me. 

"  So,  now  that  I  have  told  you  all  my  life,  I  am  going 
to  try  to  express  my  soul  to  you.  What  I  say  will  not  be 
very  original.  I  am  a  man,  like  other  men,  or,  rather,  a 
Frenchman,  like  other  Frenchmen  —  preoccupied,  that  is, 
before  everything  else,  with  women.  To  be  so  is  the  in- 
destructible inheritance  of  our  Latin  race. 

"  You  understand  well  that  this  preoccupation  is  not 
due  solely  to  sensual  unrest,  but  comes  primarily  from  a 
deep  feeling  of  tenderness,  in  which  there  remains,  as  it 
were,  a  souvenir  of  that  infancy  which  was  so  gently 
cradled  at  a  mother's  breast. 


THE  GODMOTHER  105 

"  What  do  I  think  of  women?  You  alone,  godmother, 
shall  know.  My  wife,  my  cruel  little  wife,  never  knew 
at  all.  She  was  too  young  to  understand  my  secrets  and 
I  was  too  young  to  tell  them  to  her.  Moreover,  there 
are  things  which  one  can  write,  but  which  one  could 
never  say  in  the  actual  presence  of  another,  hindered  by 
all  the  restraints  of  self-consciousness  and  modesty. 

"  To  you,  who  are  unknown,  who  are  invisible,  I  can 
give  these  '  confidences  of  a  man.' 

**  I  can't  tell  you  better  what  I  think  of  women  than 
by  setting  forth  what  I  like  in  women. 

"  A  woman !  I,  a  man,  a  simple  man,  a  man  like  all 
the  rest,  demand  and  wish  that  a  woman  be,  before  all 
else,  a  woman  —  that  is  to  say,  my  opposite.  I  want  her 
to  be  a  continual  surprise  to  me,  with  that  charm  which 
is  always  an  element  of  surprise.  I  want  to  smile  and 
even  to  laugh  sometimes,  with  amused  astonishment,  on 
discovering  her  to  be  in  every  way  different  from  me.  I 
wish  her  soul  to  be  feminine.  I  wish  that  soul  to  be,  as 
in  electricity,  the  negative  pole,  just  as  mine  is  the  posi- 
tive pole.  Then  there  will  be  a  play  of  sparks  between 
us. 

"  While  I,  the  positive  element,  earn  outside  the  means 
to  maintain  the  domestic  establishment,  I  want  her,  the 
negative  element,  to  be  the  mysterious  spirit  of  the  home, 
that  spirit  through  which  the  miracle  of  daily  life  is  ac- 
complished —  the  miracle  of  order  and  direction  in  the 


106      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

household.  All  my  being,  absorbed  in  work  without, 
counts  on  her  for  repose  in  that  interior,  made  miracu- 
lous by  her  presence.  In  hours  of  difficulty  I  expect 
from  her,  also,  good  advice,  rather  murmured  than 
spoken,  which,  once  again  outside,  I  shall  follow  with- 
out realizing  too  much  the  influence  on  my  life  which 
my  wife,  that  priestless-like  authority,  exercises. 

"My  beloved,  my  collaborator,  my  guide  —  that  is 
my  wife.  I  give  her,  you  see,  the  role  of  a  domestic 
providence.  But,  perhaps,  you  smile  pityingly  over  this 
masculine  dream,  in  which  the  management  of  the  house- 
hold—  incomprehensible  marvel  in  the  eyes  of  a  man 
—  holds  almost  as  large  a  place  as  passion. 

"  Godmother,  do  not  smile !  Let  me  tell  you,  rather, 
if  you  have  a  daughter,  how  to  bring  her  up  so  that  she 
may  make  a  man  happy,  and  at  the  same  time  be  happy 
herself.  Teach  her,  certainly,  to  be  as  attractive  as  pos- 
sible; gracious  under  all  circumstances,  and  even  co- 
quettish in  her  style  and  tastes.  Let  her  learn  some 
agreeable  art  —  music,  especially,  which  quickens  the 
intimate  emotion  of  the  hearth.  Let  her  study  a  foreign 
language  —  English,  if  you  wish  —  a  valuable  resource 
added  to  other  resources. 

"  But,  godmother,  above  everything  else  —  and  you 
must  pardon  me  for  going  back  to  things  so  material  — 
teach  her  to  use  her  hands,  to  keep  house,  to  manage  the 
kitchen,  because  it  is  a  great  superiority  for  a  lady  to  be 


THE  GODMOTHER  107 

able  in  an  emergency  to  care  for  her  husband  and  her 
children  as  a  daughter  of  the  people  does. 

"See,  godmother,  what  gratitude  can  enter  into  the 
tenderness  of  a  man  well  cared  for  by  his  wife.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  about  it.  I,  a  poor  soldier  in  this  great 
war  —  it  is  because  of  the  lack  of  them  on  my  part  that 
I  have  emphasized  all  those  things  of  which  I  speak. 
Abandoned  while  I  was  very  young  by  the  wife  whom  I 
loved  so  much,  I  lived  two  years  as  an  orphan  before  I 
lived  three  years  in  the  trenches.  And  nobody  can  be 
more  of  an  orphan,  believe  me,  than  a  man  without  a 
wife. 

"All  men  have  not  been  to  as  a  hard  a  school  as  I 
have  been  to.  But,  speaking  for  all  men,  I  can  say  to 
you:  'Women,  women,  while  we,  the  fighters  at  the 
front,  are  eminently  men,  you  must  be  eminently  women 
in  order  to  re-establish  the  equilibrium.  Don't  be  trivial 
and  frivolous,  as  my  wife  was;  cultivated  to  the  point  of 
aridity,  restless,  self-assertive,  a  sort  of  men  in  miniature, 
creatures  in  transition  whom  their  own  logic  would  lead 
to  grow  moustaches.  I  know  well  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  feminism;  and  I  have  no  quarrel  with  it.  It  is  a 
necessity;  that's  all  there  is  about  it.  And,  certainly,  I 
would  permit  women  to  be  as  long  as  they  care  to  be  on 
wit  and  intelligence.  But  let  them  not  cut  their  hair 
short!  " 

Geo  didn't   finish  her   letter.     A   little  cry,  a  little 


108      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

jump.  Throwing  the  sheets  on  the  floor,  she  ran  to  the 
mirror.  What  consternation!  She  had  her  hair  cut 
short.  With  a  jerk  she  pulled  open  the  door  and  entered 
her  dressing  room.  There,  before  the  big  triple  mirror, 
in  a  fever,  she  tried  with  the  aid  of  some  hairpins  to  twist 
her  short  locks  into  a  knot. 


THE  RED  ROSE 
MME.  LUCIE  DELARUE-MADRUS 

ALONG  the  streets,  of  an  early  morning,  jolted  the 
cab  on  whose  cushions  a  young  woman  sat  curled 
up,  her  head  bent  forward  and  her  arms  relaxed. 

We  do  not  realize  yet  that  a  cab  is  a  museum  exhibit, 
the  relic  of  a  past  which  is  always  receding  further  and 
further  —  a  cab,  that  antiquity,  almost  as  full  of  charm 
as  the  Sedan  chair,  the  vehicle  of  ladies  in  crinoline  and 
shawls,  an  obsolete  equipage  in  the  depths  of  which  our 
epoch  displays,  with  so  little  sense  of  anachronism,  the 
too  short  skirts  and  modest  hats  of  the  Great  War. 

As  to  Geo's  skirt,  of  sombre  material,  it  exposed  only 
her  ankle;  and  her  hat,  of  a  deep,  rich  shade,  was  above 
all  things  reasonable. 

With  what  care  she  had  chosen  her  present  toilette! 
With  what  patience,  with  the  aid  of  little  combs,  she  had 
gathered  in  a  knot  the  strands  of  her  short  hair. 

After  the  four  months  in  which  she,  as  a  godmother, 
had  been  corresponding  with  her  divorced  husband,  who 
suspected  no  imposition,  she  felt  today  her  high  spirits 
and  audacity  oozing  away  and  giving  place  to  the  most 
palpitating  terror. 

After  having  done  so  much  to  win  him  back,  was  she 
109 


110      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

not  going  to  lose  him  forever  —  that  loyal,  good  fellow, 
that  hero  so  misunderstood  by  her  in  the  days  of  peace, 
whom  she  now  desired  with  all  her  heart  to  have  back 
again  as  her  life's  companion? 

She  opened  for  a  last  time  her  little  bag  to  take  out 
of  it  his  letter  of  the  week  preceding.  She  wished  to 
read  it  over  in  order  to  give  herself  new  courage. 

The  slight  inrush  of  air  caused  by  the  motion  of  the 
cab  made  the  pages  flutter  in  her  trembling  fingers. 

"  Godmother,  at  this  moment,  when  I  am  about  to  re- 
turn from  the  front  —  for  six  days  only  —  I  want  to 
ask  you  very  humbly  to  come  to  the  station  to  meet  me. 
For  four  months  I  have  borne  with  calmness  your  irritat- 
ing incognito.  I  know  that  I  am  going  to  bear  with  calm- 
ness the  long  hours  of  the  trip  which  brings  me  to  you. 
But  the  minutes  which  it  would  take  me  to  go  from  the 
station  to  your  street  —  I  could  not  endure  those  minutes. 
That's  the  way  it  is.  You  know  very  well  that  that  is 
always  the  way. 

"  To  see  you,  godmother !  Will  you  please  hold  in 
your  hand  a  red  rose,  which  you  will  lift  above  your 
head  in  the  crowd.  So  I  shall  go  straight  toward  the 
colours  of  my  lady,  and  we  shall  look  into  each  other's 
eyes. 

"  Madame  —  and  all  the  godmothers  of  this  war  — 
you  don't  know  with  what  courage  one  supports  the  suf- 
ferings and  dangers  of  the  trenches  when  one  knows  that 


THE  RED  ROSE  111 

a  woman  is  watching  over  him  in  thought.  Thus  is  his- 
tory resurrected.  The  ladies  of  France  have  mounted 
once  more  to  the  towers,  while  the  warriors  of  France 
have  once  more  donned  their  helmets.  Believe  me,  the 
desire  to  fight  for  a  woman  —  respectfully,  as  it  is  done 
on  the  stained  glass  of  a  church  window  —  is  the  true 
basis  of  the  institution  of  war-time  godmothers.  You 
can  always  set  a  caricature  alongside  a  portrait.  And 
the  purest  profile  can  cast  on  the  wall  a  grotesque 
shadow.  The  war  has  lasted  too  long  for  us  to  remain 
lyric.  Yet  everything  has  not  been  lost,  believe  me,  so 
far  as  poetry  and  sentiment  are  concerned. 

"  Godmother,  I  do  not  know  you  yet.  Still,  I  have 
seen  you,  since  I  have  seen  your  soul.  Listen  to  me. 
You  have  never  in  your  letters  wished  to  allow  me  to 
guess  whether  you  were  young  or  old,  beautiful  or 
homely.  But  there  will  be  no  disillusionment  for  me, 
whatever  your  appearance.  For  if  you  are  old,  you 
shall  be  the  mother  I  no  longer  possess.  If  you  are 
young,  you  shall  be  the  wife  whom  I  have  lost.  If  you 
are  an  old  maid,  you  shall  be  the  sister  I  have  never 
had. 

"  Behold,  your  malice  is  in  this  fashion  completely  dis- 
armed. You  will  not  see  in  me  the  figure,  disappointed 
or  triumphant,  which  you  wished  to  see.  At  the  stage 
at  which  we  are  your  physical  appearance  has  no  very 
great  importance  for  me.  That  will  be  just  the  affair  of 


112      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

a  first  look.  The  surprise  over,  we  shall  take  up  our 
correspondence  where  we  left  it  off  in  our  letters;  and  all 
will  be  well." 

Geo  had  only  time  enough  to  put  the  letter  back  into 
her  bag.  The  cab  pulled  up  before  the  station  —  an  ant- 
hill painted  a  faint  war  blue.  The  haste  with  which  she 
dismounted,  paid  the  driver  and  made  her  way  into  the 
swarming  main  hall  left  her  no  time  to  think.  In  these 
war-time  stations  there  is  an  atmosphere  of  excitement 
which  affects  the  most  easy-going.  Even  they  seem  to 
catch  the  spirit  of  the  hard  pressed,  straining  locomo- 
tives. Geo  was  not  late.  Nevertheless  she  started  to  run, 
because  she  felt  compelled,  like  the  others,  to  plunge  into 
the  throng,  even  at  the  risk  of  having  her  hat  almost 
jostled  off  her  head. 

Before  the  exit  gate  from  the  train  shed  she  stopped 
and,  with  a  beating  heart,  wormed  her  way  into  the  group 
assembled  there.  Only  then  she  recovered  her  self-pos- 
session, and  her  first  act  was  to  look  at  the  red  rose  which 
she  wore  in  her  corsage. 

His  signal!  Suddenly  she  lifted  the  rose  above  her 
head,  a  splash  of  crimson  colour  at  the  end  of  the  long 
stem,  just  as  if  it  was  her  own  heart  lifted  up  there  on  the 
tip  of  a  tall  staff.  The  thought  brought  a  weak  smile 
to  her  lips. 

"  He  expects  almost  anything.  But  he  never  expected 
this." 


THE  RED  ROSE  113 

In  an  obscure  way  she  was  jealous  of  herself,  since 
her  husband  wished  to  love  her  merely  in  her  quality  of 
an  unknown. 

"Anyhow,  he  says  that  my  personal  appearance  is  of 
no  consequence.  Then  he  is  not  ready  to  fall  in  love  in 
the  true  sense.  And  I  have  no  reason  to  be  jealous." 

A  sharp  hissing  of  escaping  steam  rising  from  the 
depths  below  startled  her.  Her  whole  being  cried  out, 
"  He  is  coming !  " 

And  as  the  mass  of  arriving  passengers  hove  into  sight, 
at  the  first  appearance  of  a  horizon  blue  uniform  she 
raised  her  right  arm  and  balanced  her  rose.  For  a 
second  she  felt  an  impulse  to  lower  it  and  to  disappear 
forever.  But  she  had  no  time  to  yield  to  her  hesitations. 
She  saw  her  husband. 

The  same  as  ever,  though  looking  larger  in  his  uni- 
form, he  was  gazing  into  people's  eyes,  embarrassing 
himself  and  embarrassing  others.  Then  she  became 
aware  that  he  saw  her.  Instinctively  she  lowered  her 
head  as  he  pushed  toward  her. 

When  he  was  there  she  slowly  let  her  arm  sink  and 
lifted  her  face. 

"Ah!  "he  said. 

In  that  exclamation  were  mingled  stupefaction,  resent- 
ment and  joy.  A  step  backward  marked  his  recoil  from 
a  past  which  he  had  wished  to  shut  out  of  his  thoughts. 
But  with  that  recoil  he  recovered  his  balance.  And 


114      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

while  he  grasped  Geo's  two  wrists  with  a  gesture  which 
still  betrayed  something  of  anger  the  red  rose  shed  its 
petals  on  their  four  hands  —  softly,  as  if  to  fill  their  fu- 
ture with  fragrance. 


THE  RIVALS 
MME.  LUCIE  DELARUE-MADRUS 

AS  the  little  steamer  began  to  move  away  Gizelle,  tall, 
slender,  dark  complexioned,  supporting  herself  on 
the  rail,  waved  her  adieus  with  her  handkerchief.  On 
the  pier  her  friend,  nonchalantly  motioning  with  his 
gloved  hand,  smiled  after  her. 

She  admired  him  for  his  grace  of  manner  and  his  air  of 
gentle  irony  —  an  elegant  civilian  amid  the  horizon  blue 
throng  of  soldiers.  Was  it  possible  to  believe  that  a  man 
so  thoroughly  Parisian  in  look  and  carriage  was  for- 
eign-born? 

His  perfect  taste,  his  urbanity  of  spirit,  even  the  slight 
sneer  of  scepticism  with  which  he  held  in  check  any  ex- 
pression of  emotion  —  these  traits  made  him  the  heart- 
breaker  that  he  was  —  a  man  whom  young  women  could 
adore  only  with  anguish,  since  they  knew  very  well  that 
they  could  never  have  any  empire  over  a  nature  like  his. 

"I  love  him,"  thought  Gizelle.  Little  by  little  his 
silhouette  was  lost  in  the  mass  and  the  details  of  the 
quay  faded  out  —  the  quay  in  which  Gizelle  had  taken 
so  much  delight  the  night  before  because  it  is,  so  to 
speak,  on  a  level  with  the  sea,  and  the  waves,  when  there 
115 


116      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

is  a  swell,  dash  over  it  and  break  in  foam  among  the  legs 
of  the  tables  in  the  adjoining  cafe. 

"  It  is  Venice  over  again,"  she  had  said  on  arriving. 

Now,  on  the  steamer,  she  was  midway  in  the  roadstead 
of  Toulon,  a  blue  bath  into  which  the  shores,  with  their 
spreading  pine  trees,  come  down  to  dip  their  feet.  She 
saw  the  mountains  behind  the  city.  They  seemed  at 
anchor  in  the  port,  like  huge  armoured  ships. 

"  It  is  beautiful!  "  she  said  to  herself.  But,  habituated 
to  the  light,  half  cynical  indifference  of  her  friend,  she 
soon  turned  her  mind  to  other  things. 

She  was  still  astonished  that  she  had  remembered  sud- 
denly, that  morning,  that  there  was  a  grave  which  she 
ought  to  visit  in  the  roadstead  of  Toulon.  Does  one 
often  think  of  such  things  when  one  is  in  love? 

This  journey  to  the  Midi  was  a  journey  of  love. 
Gizelle  had  not  yet  begun  her  honeymoon.  She  was 
merely  celebrating  her  second  betrothal  —  a  betrothal 
less  hedged  about  with  formalities  than  her  first  one.  A 
widow,  she  had  decided  to  remarry  —  to  wed  this  charm- 
ing foreigner.  And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  after 
almost  ten  years  of  dubious  happiness  in  that  estate  she 
had  believed  that  she  had  been  completely  cured  of 
matrimony.  But  when  one  is  in  love,  it  seems  that  one 
re-acquires  youth,  enthusiasm  and  inexperience.  One  is 
always  twenty  years  old  when  one  is  in  love  —  even 
when  one  is  thirty-four. 


THE  RIVALS  117 

Gizelle,  seated  on  a  bench  beside  some  strangers,  felt 
herself  rocked  soothingly  by  the  rhythm  of  the  little 
steamer.  How  she  missed  her  brilliant  companion !  But 
meanwhile  she  sought  to  give  a  certain  austerity  to  her 
thoughts,  since,  after  all,  she  was  making  a  pilgrimage 
to  a  tomb. 

A  poor  young  fellow,  hardly  more  than  a  boy,  had 
loved  her,  as  had  many  others  in  the  days  before  the  war, 
when  she  was  a  newly-made  widow  and  felt  the  joy  of 
her  liberation.  She  had  smiled  at  him,  but  only  politely. 
He  was  an  emotional  adolescent,  trying  at  times,  lacking 
in  elegance,  lyrical  in  temperament,  with  large  ideas  and 
with  eyes  of  azure,  set  in  a  face  dominated  by  a  powerful 
nose.  How  he  had  suffered  because  of  her!  Gizelle 
thought  of  that  only  after  she  had  heard  of  his  death. 
With  a  weak  heart  and  properly  exempt  from  service, 
he  had  nevertheless  yielded  to  his  enthusiasm  and  joined 
the  army.  He  had  caught  a  fever  at  Salonica  and  had 
come  home  to  die  —  there  in  the  Toulon  harbour,  at  Saint 
Mandrier  Hospital. 

Gizelle  had  learned  these  details  from  his  family  at  the 
time  of  his  death. 

Forgotten  since  then,  with  everything  else,  they  now 
came  back  to  her  mind.  The  last  sigh  of  the  poor  fellow 
had  been  lyric,  like  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  Certainly 
he  had  never  mastered  his  emotions  with  a  sneer. 

Gizelle  looked  dreamily  at  the  roadstead  and  then  at 


118      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

the  bouquet  of  roses  which  she  held  on  her  knees.  That 
was  all  she  had,  and  it  was  already  droopy.  It  was  her 
bouquet  de  corsage,  the  bouquet  which  her  betrothed 
offered  her  each  morning.  Where  could  one  find  flowers 
in  Toulon  for  a  grave,  when  one  had  only  time  to  catch 
the  boat?  She  had  only  these  —  the  four  roses  which 
she  wore  —  a  bouquet  still  fresh  and  cool,  but  at  the 
same  time  a  little  the  worse  from  use  —  from  having  been 
carried  about  since  morning. 

Saint  Mandrier ! 

Gizelle  disembarked.  The  gardens  of  the  hospital,  ex- 
otic, perfumed  with  eucalyptus;  the  white  buildings, 
gleaming  palaces  of  suffering,  immaculate  asylums  of 
healing  or  of  death;  the  beautiful,  sloping,  Romanesque 
park  which  leads  up  to  the  cemetery  —  she  saw  these 
things  with  a  beating  heart. 

"  It  is  up  there  at  the  top,"  they  told  her.  "  You  have 
only  to  push  open  the  gate." 

She  made  the  ascent.  The  paths  wound  about  under 
balsam-laden  pines.  The  open  sea  was  visible  across  the 
slopes.  The  little  pebbles,  round  and  white,  sparkled 
in  the  shade,  like  jewels.  A  brooklet  meandered  here 
and  there.  Gizelle  still  climbed,  trailing  the  scent  of  the 
roses  behind  her. 

She  pushed  open  the  gate.  What  a  beautiful  garden 
for  the  living  was  this  place  filled  with  the  dead !  Gizelle 
was  all  alone  in  the  shadow  of  the  majestic  trees.  But 


THE  RIVALS  119 

how  many  there  were,  nevertheless,  about  her!  She 
saw  aligned,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  still  in  the  military 
manner,  the  hundreds  of  little  white  crosses  which  repre- 
sented soldiers.  She  read  the  names.  She  read  the  ages. 
"Twenty  years."  "Twenty-five  years."  "Twenty-one 
years."  "  Twenty  years."  "  Twenty  years." 

A  light  cry,  a  shudder.  Gizelle  remains  rooted  to  the 
spot.  The  grave  which  she  has  been  seeking  is  before 
her.  All  at  once,  "Paul!  "  she  murmurs:  "My  poor 
little  Paul!  " 

She  cannot  realize  that  this  rectangle  of  earth,  this 
wooden  cross  painted  white,  amid  so  many  other  crosses, 
represent  the  amorous  youth  who  stuttered  when  he 
spoke  and  whose  azure  eyes,  separated  by  his  long,  mas- 
sive nose,  were  irradiated  with  the  fire  of  a  noble  imagi- 
nation. 

"  He  went  to  war  an  enthusiast.  He  died  an  enthusi- 
ast. He  must  have  loved  me  in  the  same  way.  He  was 
a  hero.  He  was  not  a  Parisian,  perhaps.  But  he  was  a 
Frenchman." 

In  the  shadow  of  the  tall,  poetic  pine  trees  Gizelle 
kneels  down.  She  is  no  longer  ashamed  of  her  emotion. 
She  holds  out  her  four  roses  —  her  roses  of  love  —  to 
the  dead  man.  And  there,  in  a  low  voice,  she  speaks  to 
an  invisible  listener,  as  have  so  many  women  in  this 
war.  So  many  mothers  to  their  sons.  So  many  wives 
to  their  husbands. 


120      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

That  evening  the  same  little  steamer  brought  her  back 
to  Toulon.  Her  ironical,  elegant,  charming  admirer,  on 
the  spray-beaten  quay  which  resembled  Venice,  watched 
coming  toward  him  the  frail  steamer  which  bore  his  love. 
At  a  certain  distance  he  commenced  to  distinguish  the 
tall,  slender,  dark-complexioned  Gizelle,  leaning  upon 
the  rail.  But  she  made  no  sign  of  recognition  and  wel- 
come with  her  handkerchief.  She  no  longer  had  the 
roses  in  her  hands. 

And  the  foreigner,  smiling,  sure  of  himself,  did  not 
know  that  he  had  lost  everything  —  that  on  the  grave 
of  the  dead  youth,  along  with  his  four-  j%^es,  the  amorous 
Gizelle  had  left  her  heart. 


IN  A  ROADSTEAD  OF  FRANCE 
RENE  BENJAMIN 

EACH  smaller  city  of  France  has  its  own  regiment. 
That  regiment,  at  full  strength  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  has  been  more  than  once  decimated,  and  the 
city  now  sends  it  recruits,  clothing  and  munitions,  as  a 
mother  sends  packages  to  her  child.  The  wounded  who 
have  been  cured  return  to  get  guns,  knapsacks  and  car- 
tridges. They  stay  a  little  while  —  long  enough  to  taste 
the  wine  or  the  cider  of  the  country.  Then  they  go  away. 
And  in  the  trenches,  on  calm  days,  smoking  their  pipes, 
they  dream  of  the  quiet  of  the  provincial  town,  a  hun- 
dred leagues  away  from  the  shells. 

But  certain  cities  have  no  soldiers  —  those  which  the 
sea  bathes,  where  the  wind  blows  fresh  and  salty  from 
the  ocean  stretches.  These  are  the  home  stations  of  the 
sailors,  not  of  the  men  who  fight  on  land.  There  the  city 
regiments  are  the  crews  of  the  warships.  Instead  of  be- 
ing reformed  and  reorganized  in  a  gloomy  barracks,  these 
crews  are  received  in  a  roadstead,  under  an  open  sky,  in 
the  free  air.  The  Depot,  that  sinister  and  cavernous 
rendezvous,  becomes  the  Arsenal,  a  place  of  light  and  life 
and  movement.  Here  is  no  quadrangle  or  court  sur- 
121 


122      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

rounded  by  walls.  Battleships,  cruisers,  bridges,  be- 
tween-decks,  masts,  fighting  tops,  from  which  one  can 
see  clear  to  the  horizon.  Instead  of  a  troop  housed  in 
buildings,  a  fleet,  men  and  vessels,  which,  in  order  that 
it  may  refit,  the  country  holds  in  sheltered  waters.  It  is 
inspiring  to  see  one  of  these  great  ports  when  the  ships 
come  back  to  it,  worn  and  war  stained. 

Last  week  I  saw  them.  I  traversed  the  roadstead  of 
Toulon  on  one  of  those  poor  ferryboats  which  ply  about 
the  harbour,  and  Which  look  so  pitiful  with  their  aged 
carcasses,  their  scaled  and  spotted  sides  and  their  thin 
smokestacks  that  one  is  tempted  to  think  of  each  of 
them:  "It  must  be  a  derelict  fished  up  somewhere  by 
a  wrecking  company." 

We  passed  before  a  Russian  battleship  with  five  huge 
stacks,  bizarre  and  startling.  Then  we  came  upon  the 
transports,  all  painted  grey,  transformed  merchant  ships, 
powerful  and  beautiful,  which  constitute  one  of  the  most 
precious  shares  of  our  patrimony,  which  are  our  riches 
and  our  strength,  which  in  time  of  peace  have  carried  so 
many  Frenchmen  to  the  fairy  lands  of  the  Orient,  and 
which  now  in  their  war  trim  wait  to  bear  soldiers  and 
cannon  to  Salonica. 

Our  old,  wheezing  ferryboat  was  carrying  us  along 
that  line  in  which  was  drawn  up  all  the  best  that  mari- 
time France  can  boast  of,  when  I  heard  a  young  soldier, 
seated  near  me,  say  to  a  woman: 


IN  A  ROADSTEAD  OF  FRANCE      123 

"  How  fine  it  is!  And  how  beautiful!  Isn't  it  splen- 
did —  my  roadstead  —  and  don't  you  love  it?  " 

I  turned.  I  could  not  see  him  very  well,  at  most  a 
three-quarter  view.  I  noticed  only  that  he  wore  smoked 
glasses,  although  the  day  was  then  overcast  and  the  sun- 
light was  in  no  sense  dazzling.  But  the  skies  cleared. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  light  clouds  melted  away  and  the 
sun,  now  fairly  low,  showered  us  with  its  rays  of 
gold. 

The  young  woman  to  whom  the  soldier  was  talking 
opened  her  umbrella,  which  was  of  a  mauve  shade.  She 
tenderly  sheltered  her  friend,  and  as  I  watched  her  (in- 
discreetly, perhaps)  she  gave  me  an  indefinable  look,  at 
once  appealing  and  troubled  —  a  look  which  I  did  not 
understand,  but  which  revealed  to  me,  all  of  a  sudden, 
the  splendid  beauty  of  her  eyes. 

What  a  feminine  charm  there  was  in  that  look!  Pu- 
pils of  deep  black,  a  very  soft,  white  skin,  and  under  the 
eye,  in  that  visage,  young,  pure  and  highbred,  a  small 
blue  vein,  light  and  delicate,  which  gave  to  that  feature 
through  which  the  heart  most  clearly  shows  its  emotions 
a  note  of  adorable  sensibility. 

To  have  seen  her  was  enough.  I  understood  that  I 
had  beside  me  two  lovers.  For  all  that,  there  was  no 
sparkle  of  gaiety  on  his  face.  But  I  could  feel  his 
tenderness.  I  knew  that  he  was  a  poet  in  spirit,  with 
something  almost  epic  about  him. 


124      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

Although  he  spoke  in  a  low  voice,  the  light  wind  car- 
ried his  words  in  my  direction.  He  said  to  her: 

"  My  little  one,  my  heart  beats  to  be  again  among  these 
scenes.  And  you,  tell  me  if  you " 

She  replied  in  a  repressed  voice: 

"  My  dear,  I  am  very  happy." 

"How  I  love  you!  But  is  it  not  fine  —  the  sunset 
over  there?  " 

She  answered,  her  voice  still  more  repressed: 

"  It  is  very  fine." 

And  I  remarked  that  the  umbrella  trembled  a  little  in 
her  hand. 

He  continued: 

"  Down  there,  you  see,  facing  us,  at  the  entry  to  the 
roadstead " 

She  responded,  turning  toward  him: 

"  My  love.     I  see  everything." 

She  pressed  his  hand,  looking  at  him  with  all  the 
ardour  in  her  eyes. 

Then,  in  a  much  lower  tone,  he  doubtless  whispered 
to  her  some  words  of  love  and  thanks  which  I  could  not 
hear.  Suddenly,  raising  his  voice  again  and  speaking 
almost  jubilantly,  he  continued: 

"  Ah !  To  escape  from  the  winter  trenches,  and  then 
from  that  stifling  hospital,  and  to  feel  the  sun  once  more 
on  one's  shoulders!  Look,  dearest;  look,  my  love;  see 
down  there  what  I  am  going  to  point  out  to  you " 


IN  A  ROADSTEAD  OF  FRANCE      125 

She  made  a  nervous  gesture,  and  then,  almost 
brusquely: 

"  That  big  battleship  hides  it  all.  But  it  is  very  beau- 
tiful." 

We  were  passing,  in  fact,  before  one  of  those  superb 
monsters  and  he  said  to  her,  stammering  in  confusion 
this  time: 

"Ah!  A  battleship?  But  when  we  shall  have  passed 
it,  you  will  see  what  I  was  talking  about." 

He  was  silent  for  a  minute.  Then  he  began  again 
(and  from  the  way  in  which  he  held  his  head  I  could 
tell  that  he  had  an  ear  more  sensitive  to  sounds  than 
people  ordinarily  have) .  He  began: 

"  Do  you  see  the  sea  gulls?  " 

"  I  see  them." 

"  Charming  little  beasts,  swift  and  agile;  see  them 
fly  about  the  great  warships.  They  surround  them,  pay 
homage  to  them,  guard  them.  They  represent  a  sort  of 
winged  joy.  They  suggest  something  poetic  amid  this 
conglomeration  of  iron  monsters.  And  when  the  sky  is 
blue  —  as  it  is  today,  with  this  sun  —  look  at  their 
stomachs.  Their  little  white  stomachs!  They  give  out 
a  reflection  of  the  blue  as  they  fly." 

She  said: 

"  It  is  true.     It  is  charming.  .  .  .  We  are  arriving." 

He  asked  —  very  quickly: 

"  Do  you  see  the  city?  " 


126      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  I  think  I  do." 

"  Do  you  find  it  so  beautiful?  " 

"No.     Oh,  no.     It  is " 

"How  happily  it  is  situated!  Look  at  the  quay. 
And  how  good  everything  smells!  An  odour  so  whole- 
some and  so  robust,  of  brine  and  of  pitch !  Ah,  they  are 
fine,  the  battleships!  Tell  me,  don't  they  look  wonder- 
ful this  evening?  " 

"  Very  wonderful." 

"  Yes,  yes.     It  is  rudely,  ruggedly  chic,  our  France." 

With  those  manly  words  of  confidence  on  his  lips  he 
arose,  for  the  boat  was  coming  alongside  the  pier.  The 
young  wife  gently  took  his  arm,  with  a  charming  gesture, 
half  of  love,  half  of  pity.  The  sun,  now  glorious  and 
unshadowed,  bathed  with  the  golden  rays  of  its  setting 
sea  and  quay,  ships  and  men.  A  luminous  evening, 
charged  with  hope,  the  portent  of  victory  and  a  reason 
for  thinking  of  victory,  a  true  feast  for  the  eyes. 

Close  together,  elbows  touching,  one  supporting  the 
other,  with  a  sort  of  amorous  caress  in  each  movement 
as  they  walked,  they  stepped  down  from  the  ferryboat. 
And  when,  on  the  gangplank,  his  foot  stumbled  a  little 
an  old  man  of  the  people  who  watched  them,  as  I  did,  said 
to  me  gruffly: 

"  One  sees  sorry  things  in  these  bad  times.  But  there 
are  some  people  who  are  the  real  stuff.  He  is  blind,  that 
man  there,  monsieur." 


IN  A  ROADSTEAD  OF  FRANCE      127 

He  raised  his  hand  to  his  hat  as  if  to  salute.  Then 
he  added : 

"  Since  the  attack  in  Champagne.  I  know  him  well. 
He  is  from  here.  And  the  young  wife  —  she  is  his  nurse, 
whom  he  has  married.  She  is  a  Russian.  They  are 
making  a  honeymoon  trip.  He  is  showing  her  his  coun- 
try. So  he  shows  her  everything,  poor  fellow;  and  he 
doesn't  want  to  have  too  much  the  air  of  not  seeing  it 
himself." 

With  that  he  winked  his  eye,  like  a  man  rich  in  expe- 
rience. Then  he  added: 

"  That,  monsieur,  is  gallantry  heroized.  That  is  what 
I  call  it.  And  it  is  found  nowhere  else  than  in  France." 


THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  HEROISM 
RENE  BENJAMIN 

IT  was  at  a  first-aid  post  at  C ,  on  a  quiet  evening. 
I  was  saying  to  the  major:  "  What  is  especially  ad- 
mirable in  our  men  is  the  simplicity  with  which  they 
bear  themselves  —  with  which  they  face  death.  People 
tell  them  that  they  are  heroes.  They  shrug  their  shoul- 
ders. That  word  has  been  hackneyed  by  too  much  legen- 
dary boasting.  It  repels  today  these  simple  people, 
whose  resignation  is  so  unostentatious.  Watch  them  in 
the  heat  of  action.  No  words  for  effect,  no  prepared 
gestures.  They  do  what  they  have  to  do,  as  they  are  told 
to  do  it,  and  die,  if  necessary,  because  in  these  times  to 
die  —  that  is  only  an  incident  of  life.  Almost  always 
they  are  simple,  very  simple." 

The  major  listened  to  me  without  answering.  I 
pressed  him. 

"  Is  that  not  your  opinion  —  your  real  opinion?  And 
you  see  them  at  such  close  quarters,  at  the  moment  of 
their  worst  suffering,  when  a  man  thinks  less  than  ever 
of  assuming  an  attitude." 

He  replied: 

128 


THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  HEROISM      129 

"  I  follow  you  and  I  believe  you.  But  personally 
what  do  I  know?  I  am  very  badly  situated  to  know. 
A  wounded  man  arrives.  I  am  in  a  hurry  to  examine 
him.  As  to  what  he  thinks  I  am  too  busy  to  concern 
myself.  I  forget  all  about  the  man  and  his  morale. 
How  have  I  the  time?  I  must  try  to  save  him.  To  in- 
terest myself  especially  in  one  is  to  neglect  another. 
The  war  may  last  thirty  years,  my  friend.  I  shall  have 
seen  stomachs  torn  open,  brains  laid  bare  and  limbs 
smashed  to  jelly.  But  I  shall  know  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing,  of  our  Frenchmen.  I  bend  over  them.  But  I 
have  no  reaction.  Still  less  have  I  any  leisure.  Or, 
when  I  have  any,  there  is  no  one  here  to  study.  While  I 
dine  I  run  over  one  or  two  newspapers  which  my  wife 
sends  me,  and  I  read  in  them  brilliant  stories  of  the  war 
written  by  journalists,  who,  without  doubt,  are  safe  at 
home,  but  in  whom  I  have  every  confidence  because  they 
satisfy  my  old  belief  that  the  soldier  of  our  country  al- 
ways has  a  plume  in  his  helmet." 

I  tossed  my  head  and  he  continued: 

"  I  notice  your  air.  In  your  opinion,  I  am  at  the  stage 
of  the  '  History  of  France,  Illustrated  for  Children.'  My 
dear  sir,  I  am  nai've,  like  so  many  men  who  are  entirely 
absorbed  in  action." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  at  least  you  hear  them  talk  —  your 
wounded." 

"  They  pass  out  of  sight.     I  forget." 


130      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  And  your  hospital  attendants.  They  remain  with 
you.  Learn  from  them  human  simplicity." 

"  Oh,  yes,  on  that  point  I  read 

"  But  it  isn't  necessary  to  read.  All  that  is  fabricated 
at  the  rear.  Or,  if  you  must  read,  you  ought  to  read 
Vigny.  The  page  where  Vigny,  in  *  Servitude  and 
Grandeur,'  describes  the  terrible  explosion  of  the  donjon 
of  Vincennes.  Suddenly,  in  a  courtyard,  against  a  wall, 
he  finds  a  head  separated  from  a  body.  It  is  that  of  an 
adjutant,  who,  for  sixty  pages  or  more,  has  been  the 
hero  of  the  story.  At  that  coup  de  theatre  the  reader 
gives  a  shudder.  But  Vigny  adds  tranquilly:  'At  that 
moment  a  young  soldier,  a  fresh,  rosy-cheeked  blond, 
bent  down  to  take  from  the  smoke-stained  trunk  a  black 
silk  cravat.' " 

"  That  is  still  a  good  story,"  said  the  major. 

"  Look,  my  dear  man,"  I  continued,  "  at  the  funeral 
sermon  —  human  and  admirable  —  which  we  hear  every 
day.  Over  against  death  there  is  always  life,  which, 
without  fear  or  worry,  continues  its  normal,  habitual 
routine.  Listen !  I  recall  our  first  man  killed  —  in  Au- 
gust, 1914.  It  is  always  terrible,  you  know  —  the  first. 
After  the  tenth  the  emotion  subsides.  But  the  first  one 
to  be  a  'victim,'  as  they  say  —  the  first  whom  all  the 
others  see  fall  —  one  can  never  chase  that  souvenir  out 
of  his  memory. 

"Very  well.    The  first  victim  in  my  regiment  was 


THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  HEROISM      131 

struck  at  the  entrance  to  a  village  which  was  attacked 
and  captured.  Very  easily,  too;  for  the  Germans  were 
so  afraid  to  defend  it  that  they  evacuated  it.  Toward 
evening  we  occupied  it.  But  in  a  few  hours  an  order 
came  to  retire.  We  were  relieved.  Chasseurs  replaced 
us — or  rather  they  were  to  replace  us.  In  any  case,  we 
had  a  formal  order  to  withdraw  at  once. 

"  It  was  necessary  that  the  Boches,  who  were  only  two 
hundred  metres  (not  further)  away  from  us,  should  not 
suspect  our  departure.  A  remarkable  trick  to  play  on 
them  and  one  which  appears  improbable  in  this  fright- 
ful war.  But  we  went  through  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of 
high  comedy  in  that  village  —  an  episode  more  absurd 
than  heroic,  a  sort  of  adventure  taken  from  the  history 
of  ancient  Greece.  Those  who  entered  most  into  the 
spirit  of  it  took  off  their  shoes.  The  others  marched 
on  their  tip-toes.  One  heard  nervous  laughs,  half  sup- 
pressed. Finally,  under  the  very  noses  of  the  Boches, 
we  left  the  village  completely  empty.  Yes,  my  friend, 
without  a  single  defender. 

"  No,  pardon  me,  there  was  one  —  that  first  man  of  the 
regiment  to  get  killed.  We  found  him  against  the  wall 
of  a  house,  on  his  knees,  in  the  position  of  a  man  who 
kneels  in  order  to  aim  better.  He  had  remained  in  that 
position,  his  body  a  little  stiffened  and  his  arms  low- 
ered, with  the  rifle,  which  weighed  him  down,  still  in  his 
hands. 


132      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  It  was  startling,  but  curiously  impressive  —  there  in 
the  twilight.  We  were  leaving  him  to  guard  that  Lor- 
raine village  until  the  Chasseurs  should  arrive.  In  pass- 
ing him  each  of  us  straightened  himself  up  as  if  to  sa- 
lute. Then  my  neighbour,  who  was  a  big-hearted  Nor- 
man, said  to  me  in  a  voice  thick  with  regret: 
"  *  Did  you  see?  He  lost  his  handkerchief.' 
"  Yes,  that  material  detail  had  caused  my  comrade  more 
distress,  perhaps,  than  the  sight  of  the  corpse.  By  his 
expression  I  saw  that  he  thought  of  it  for  a  long  time.  A 
handkerchief  which  falls,  a  handkerchief  lost,  which  one 
has  no  time  to  pick  up,  what  a  misfortune!  And,  with 
utter  candour,  he  had  preserved  in  this  tragic  moment 
all  the  simplicity  of  his  nature,  assuming  from  the  very 
outset  the  habit  of  looking  in  a  neighbourly  manner  at 
death." 

The  major  listened  to  me,  always  attentive.     He  said: 
"  It  is  true  that  that  is  fine  —  that  it  is  life  as  it  is." 
He  had  not  finished  his  phrase  when  two  stretcher  bear- 
ers brought  in  a  sergeant  who  had  a  shell  wound  in  his 
stomach.     He  tossed  on  his  stretcher  and  kept  saying: 
"There  it  is!     Oh!     There  it  is!  " 
It  seemed  to  me  at  first  that  he  merely  wished  to  say: 
"  I  am  hit     I  have  a  piece  of  shell  there." 

But  while  the  major  undressed  him  with  the  aid  of  the 
two  bearers,  I  understood  all  of  a  sudden  that  he  felt  he 
was  going  to  die  and  was  a  prey  to  the  terror  of  that 


THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  HEROISM      133 

dreaded  passage.  I  immediately  took  his  hand,  while 
they  examined  him,  and  before  the  doctor's  diagnosis 
was  completed  I  said  to  him: 

"  It  is  nothing,  really  nothing  at  all." 

But  the  major,  with  a  clear  voice  —  one  of  those  voices 
which  affirm  too  much  in  order  the  better  to  cover  an 
untruth  —  pronounced  judgment: 

"  Don't  worry  at  all  about  it.  You  will  be  around 
again  in  fifteen  days." 

The  sergeant  hadn't  the  strength  to  answer.  He  began 
to  choke.  His  body  was  convulsed.  It  grew  stiff.  The 
major  made  me  a  sign  that  the  case  was  desperate.  We 
stretched  him  out,  holding  him  as  gently  as  we  could,  and 
all  at  once  the  unfortunate  man,  becoming  calm  and 
relaxing  in  order  to  die,  turned  his  eyes,  full  of  tender- 
ness, toward  us,  as  if  to  say:  "Well,  if  it  must  be  so, 
good-bye." 

Then  he  stammered  —  this  simple  and  heroic  soldier, 
in  a  breathless,  agonizing  tone: 

"  Ah,  mon  Dieu!     What  will  my  wife  say?  " 

Was  that  a  theatrical  speech,  one  for  effect  on  the 
public  and  in  the  newspapers? 

The  major  and  I  looked  at  each  other.  He  discovered 
now  the  admirable  simplicity  of  true  heroes.  And  as  I 
saw  his  eyes  through  mist  I  didn't  know  whether  it  was 
he  who  wept  or  I. 


THE  HINDOO  COMMISSARIAT 
RENE  BENJAMIN 

FOM  the  depths  of  the  auto  I  ventured  this  common- 
place remark: 

"Ah!     There's  a  Hindoo!" 

The  British  officer  made  a  sign  to  the  driver  to  stop, 
and  said: 

"  Let  us  get  out." 

The  tall  soldier  from  the  Indies,  beautiful  as  the 
first  man  must  have  been  beautiful,  with  a  silky  beard, 
a  skin  tanned  by  the  rays  of  an  ardent  sun,  the  brow  of  a 
dreamer,  with  all  the  ease  of  manner  natural  to  persons 
well  born  —  this  type  of  a  marvellous  country,  standing 
at  the  entrance  of  a  tent  which  seemed  dwarfed  beside 
him,  was  nonchalantly  cutting  with  a  curved  knife  blade 
a  piece  of  wood  which  had  the  shape  of  a  man's  throat. 

Seeing  the  major,  he  neither  moved  nor  saluted.  But 
his  look  expressed  a  certain  sweetness  and  friendliness 
—  a  friendliness  wholly  immobile  and  contemplative. 

It  would  be  useless  to  bother  him.  The  major  called 
a  young  Scotchman,  saying  to  me: 

"The  Scotch  — they  are  the  politest  fellows  in  Eng- 
land." 

134 


THE  HINDOO  COMMISSARIAT       135 

At  the  same  moment  a  second  auto  stopped  and  an- 
other officer  got  out,  accompanied  by  a  civilian.  They 
introduced  us. 

"  M.  Benjamin,  important  French  journalist." 

*'M.  Persigris,  distinguished  Parisian,  manufacturer 
of  conserves." 

We  exchanged  greetings  without  conviction,  each  of 
us  being  quite  indifferent  to  the  other.  Then,  following 
the  young  Scotchman,  we  entered  a  vast  barracks  where 
there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  bags  —  vulgar  bags 
piled  on  top  of  one  another.  And  already  I  regretted 
the  mysterious  eyes  of  the  Hindoo  when  I  saw  those  of 
Persigris  suddenly  grow  bright,  and  that  personage,  who 
had  a  pronounced  stomach  and  breathed  heavily,  said 
in  a  grave  tone: 

"  Ah !     Let  us  see  some  of  these." 

The  Scotchman  was  agile  and  easily  disentangled  the 
bags.  From  a  pile  taller  than  three  men  he  disengaged 
a  bag  four  times  as  big  as  himself  and  commenced 
emptying  it,  while  the  major  said: 

"  It  is  the  food  for  the  Hindoos.  The  Hindoos  —  it 
was  difficult  to  feed  them;  but  to  feed  them  well  was 
important." 

Plunging  his  hand  into  the  first  bag  the  young  Scotch- 
man drew  out  of  it  little  white,  powdery  roots,  and  the 
dealer  in  conserves  asked  in  a  wheezy  voice: 

"  What  are  those  dirty  little  things?  " 


136      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Ginger  roots,"  said  the  major  amiably. 

Then  my  compatriot  tasted  them  —  greedily,  like  a 
boy.  He  turned,  coughed  and  trembled  slightly. 

"  It  is  unheard  of  to  feed  such  stuff." 

The  Scotchman  had  the  good  fortune  not  to  understand 
the  language  of  conserve  makers.  He  busied  himself 
opening  another  bag,  from  which  he  drew  some  little 
dried  things,  vegetables  or  fruits,  in  a  fine,  friable  en- 
velope, such  as  onions  have. 

"Ah!  That!  That's  better,"  said  the  conserve 
dealer. 

Already  he  was  rubbing  one  and  opening  his  mouth. 
But  the  major  made  a  gesture. 

"  Take  care !     Important !  " 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'important'?" 

The  manufacturer  of  conserves  spoke  like  a  buzzing 
hornet. 

"  I  said  *  emportant,' "  replied  the  major.  "  You  will 
have  a  raging  mouth.  That  is  pimento." 

"  Is  all  that  pimento?  "  asked  the  conserve  maker. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  major,  imperturbably,  "  the  other  bar- 
racks is  also  filled  with  pimento." 

"  They  are  crazy,"  said  M.  Persigris. 

Untiringly  the  Scotchman,  kneeling  under  his  folded 
skirt,  which  swelled  out  drolly,  knocked  open  a  case  with 
a  hammer  and  fished  out  of  it  two  zinc  boxes,  which  he 
handed  down  to  us.  With  his  knife  he  slit  open  the  lids 


THE  HINDOO  COMMISSARIAT       137 

and  let  us  see  a  yellow  paste,  which  the  merchant 
smelled. 

"  Butter,"  said  the  major  with  a  smile. 

"  But  it  is  rancid,"  snapped  M.  Persigris. 

"  Butter  from  the  Indies,"  replied  the  major. 

"  Made  from  rhinoceros  milk?  "  returned  M.  Persigris. 

Like  the  Scotchman,  we  assumed  the  air  of  not  under- 
standing him,  the  major  out  of  politeness,  I  out  of  pity. 

"And  with  this,  what  else  do  they  put  in  their  giz- 
zards? " 

The  Scotchman,  admirable  fellow,  had  just  made  with 
two  quick  motions  a  breach  in  a  metal  cask  and  held  out 
to  us  something  which  resembled  a  potato.  In  appear- 
ance it  was  bizarre,  wrinkled,  dirty. 

The  merchant  exclaimed: 

"  That  is  a  prize  bit!     Is  it  fish  bait?  " 

The  major  gave  an  indulgent  smile. 

"  It  is  sugar,"  he  said,  phlegmatically. 

"Sugar?" 

"  Sugar  for  them." 

"But  what  sort  of  sugar?" 

"Taste  it!" 

"Ah!    Ah!    Ah!    Ah!" 

He  spit  it  out. 

The  major  explained  to  me:  "A  mixture  of  honey  and 
cinnamon." 

The  great  man  burst  into  a  laugh.     He  went  out  to 


138      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

get  a  little  air.     He  was  choking  himself  with  his  guffaws. 

"  These  people  are  really  comic." 

Then,  swelling  himself  out,  his  hands  behind  his  back, 
he  became  all  of  a  sudden  pompous. 

"  Since  the  government  has  sent  me  to  see  all  this  (he 
looked  at  me),  I  can  say  to  these  gentlemen  (he  turned 
to  the  British  officers)  that  in  my  opinion  (he  gazed  ad- 
miringly at  his  stomach)  there  ought  to  be  a  possibility 
of  replacing  all  this  merchandise  with  equivalents  which 
we  manufacture." 

The  major  smiled  with  a  certain  air  of  finesse. 

"These  Hindoos,  what  do  they  want?  Sauces  which 
will  set  their  mouths  on  fire?  Well,  we'll  make  them 
for  them.  Only  what  is  it  that  they  stick  in  their 
sauces?  " 

With  all  possible  good  will  the  major  answered: 

"They  eat  she-goats." 

"What  an  idea!  " 

"  She-goats  killed  —  how  shall  I  say  it?  Well,  killed 
in  a  certain  fashion." 

"So?  Then  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  make  them  be- 
lieve that  we  killed  the  she-goats  that  way." 

Decidedly,  this  man  who  with  myself  represented 
France  among  the  English,  was  getting  on  my  nerves.  I 
stepped  away.  I  turned  again  toward  the  admirable 
Hindoo.  He  had  squatted  himself  down  and  with  some 
dry  twigs  had  lighted  beside  his  tent  a  clear  fire,  which 


THE  HINDOO  COMMISSARIAT       139 

crackled,  flared  and  leaped  aloft  and  which  cast  against 
the  shadows  of  the  approaching  night  a  cheering  light, 
a  gleam  of  hope,  a  ray  of  poesy. 

It  is  the  hour  dreaded  by  armies  —  that  when  the 
night  descends  upon  things  and  men.  The  most  hard- 
ened soldier  feels  an  uneasiness  coming  over  him.  The 
heaven  above  him,  which  is  the  purest  joy  to  his  eyes, 
the  heaven  which  sends  him  all  that  is  best  in  his  life,  the 
clear  day  and  its  warmth  —  when  the  heaven  is  obscured, 
when  it  disappears,  when  it  weighs  upon  the  earth  instead 
of  filling  it  with  cheer  and  gladness,  in  war,  where  hearts 
are  heavy  with  misery,  it  is  the  hour  when  each  one  gets 
restless  and,  even  among  so  many  comrades,  suffers  be- 
cause he  feels  himself  alone. 

The  mystery  of  the  world,  the  strangeness  of  life,  more 
agonizing  than  ever  when  one  is  in  daily  contact  with 
death,  assails  men  at  that  time  and  tugs  at  their  throats. 
Only  they  have  that  divine  resource  in  reserve,  the  fire; 
and  one  sees  all  the  opaque  tents  become  suddenly  trans- 
parent and  stand  out  fairy-like  in  the  sombre  night. 

The  Hindoo,  warming  his  hands,  contemplated  the 
little  darting  flames  which  came  from  his  open-air  fire- 
place like  kisses  thrown  to  him  by  some  good  genie,  and 
his  eyelids  closed  contentedly.  Of  what  was  he  thinking 
—  this  man  who  loves  she-goat's  flesh,  with  pimento; 
rancid  butter  and  cinnamon  mixed  with  honey? 

Is  the  enigma  of  existence  not  profound  enough  to 


140      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

make  us  tolerant  of  his  answers  to  it,  of  his  peculiar  hab- 
its of  reverie?  And  at  a  time  when  reason  is  certainly 
at  a  discount  may  it  not  be  that  there  is  more  good  sense 
in  his  rigid  rules  of  life  than  in  the  sneers  of  a  merchant 
of  conserves  whom  the  war  has  made  rich? 

The  major,  without  saying  a  word,  had  instinctively 
divined  all  this.  But  in  his  character  of  an  Englishman, 
who  cares  nothing  for  discussion  in  the  abstract,  he 
replied  smilingly  in  mere  monosyllables  to  this  great 
man. 

After  they  had  tramped  about  for  a  while  in  the  mud 
I  saw  them  direct  their  steps  again  toward  our  autos.  I 
rejoined  them.  There  the  major,  forced  to  it,  no  doubt, 
by  banalities  which  had  become  tiresome,  went  as  far  as 
to  say  in  his  usual  amiable  manner: 

"  But  it  is  their  religion,  is  it  not?  We  cannot  un- 
derstand it.  But  we  have  to  respect  it." 

There  reigned  at  that  moment  in  this  bit  of  country 
ravaged  by  the  war  a  deadly  silence.  And  those  simple 
words,  spoken  without  any  pretentiousness,  almost  with 
an  accent  of  tenderness,  seemed  to  me  full  of  profound 
wisdom. 

We  saluted  one  another  once  more.  With  his  head 
still  uncovered  the  conserve  merchant  said  pompously: 

"  When  I  get  out  of  business  I  shall  go  to  India." 

"  Oh,"  answered  the  major,  "  I  am  afiaid  you  won't 
have  time  to  see  much." 


THE  HINDOO  COMMISSARIAT       141 

"  I  shall  stay  there,"  answered  the  merchant,  "  as  long 
as  may  be  necessary  —  three  months,  six  months." 

"  You  will  see  nothing  at  all,  then,"  said  the  major. 

"Why?" 

"  It  is  too  immense,  is  it  not?  Too  incredible?  In 
men  —  and  also  in  things." 

"  You  have  been  there?  " 

"  Yes.  I  have  been  about  there  a  good  deal.  But  it 
is  too  big.  I  have  not  understood  it  very  well." 

"  You  were  not  there  long  enough?  " 

"Exactly." 

"  But  how  long  were  you  there?  " 

The  major  lowered  his  eyes,  as  if  he  wanted  to  excuse 
himself.  Then  he  answered: 

"  Twenty-three  years." 

The  manufacturer  of  conserves  knit  his  brows.  Then 
he  got  into  his  auto  without  another  word.  The  dark- 
ness became  dense  and  depressing. 

The  major  got  into  the  auto  with  me.  We  were  both 
silent.  But  when  we  were  under  way,  jolting  around  in 
the  wagon,  he  leaned  against  my  friendly  shoulder  and 
said,  half  in  a  whisper: 

"We  haven't  time  —  is  it  not  so?  We  men  haven't 
time  to  know  everything  —  to  understand  everything.  It 
generally  happens  that  night  comes  too  soon." 


MARIETTE'S  GIFT 
JEAN  AICARD 

HPHE  Southern  springtime  had  all  the  ardours  of  sum- 
-»-  mer.  It  was  June  already.  The  reddening  wheat 
stalks  awaited  the  harvest  and,  over-weighted,  bent  their 
heads  toward  the  earth,  to  which  the  seed  grains,  in  or- 
der to  grow  again,  wished  to  return  all  the  more 
promptly.  For  all  that  which  lives  must  die  in  order  to 
be  requickened. 

They  were  very  heavy,  those  wheat  heads,  and,  balan- 
cing themselves,  they  touched  one  another  amorously, 
caressingly  —  and  that  made  a  little  rustling  noise.  A 
song  of  love,  murmuring,  rhythmic,  came  from  them  as 
they  were  stirred  by  the  evening  breezes  and  that  song 
entered  into  the  hearts  of  the  young  girls  who,  toward 
evening,  went  to  the  covered  well  to  refill  with  fresh  wa- 
ter the  glazed  pitchers  which  a  day  of  sunshine  had  made 
lukewarm  even  in  the  shade  of  the  farmhouses  with  their 
shutters  drawn. 

Mariette  comes  to  the  well.     She  holds  by  the  handle, 

like  a  basket,  the  green  pitcher  on  the  sides  of  which  the 

setting   sun    outlines   sparkling,    reddish    squares.     The 

well  is  covered  from  top  to  bottom  with  verdure.    An 

142 


MARIETTE'S  GIFT  143 

ancient  ivy,  very  thick,  which  draws  the  bees,  envelops 
it,  and  over  the  dome  its  loose  stems  wave  like  plumes. 
Under  this  cupola  a  little  door  opens,  the  stone  beneath 
which  forms  a  sill.  It  is  like  a  little  rustic  temple,  dedi- 
cated to  the  spring,  to  the  water  sprite  who  lives  at  the 
bottom  of  this  fresh  cave,  dug  vertically  by  the  hand  of 
man. 

Mariette  opens  the  door.  The  fresh  breath  of  im- 
prisoned water  mounts  to  the  lighted  opening.  It  wishes 
to  be  freed,  to  exhale  itself  into  the  radiant  warmth  of 
the  summer,  which  is  already  at  hand. 

Mariette  always  rejoices  to  open  the  door  through 
which  comes  to  her  that  caressing  freshness,  which 
spreads  across  her  visage  and  penetrates  her  whole  body. 
Water  is  the  treasure  of  warm  countries.  One  locks  it 
up  jealously  and  at  the  hours  when  it  is  liberated  one 
enjoys  voluptuously  all  its  charms. 

That  is  why,  on  drawing  toward  her  the  bucket  attached 
to  the  pulley,  to  see  if  it  is  not  inhabited  by  some  pretty 
tree  frog,  Mariette  smiles  with  happiness.  Then  she 
releases  the  bucket,  holding  the  rope  firmly  with  her 
strong  young  arms.  The  bucket  descends  to  the  joyous 
wheezing  of  the  old  iron  pulley. 

The  bucket  descends,  strikes  the  water  and  fills.  The 
young  girl,  bent  over,  her  body  vibrant,  tugs  at  the  rope. 
The  bucket  mounts  heavily.  She  leans  with  both  arms 
upon  the  rope,  releases  it  with  one  hand  in  order  to 


144      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

grasp  it  further  up  with  the  other  —  so  graceful  in  all  her 
movements  that  she  reminds  one  of  wild  animals  in  free- 
dom, who  believe  that  they  are  entirely  alone  and  unob- 
served in  one  of  their  native  fastnesses. 

She  believes  that  she  is  alone.     But  she  is  not. 

Behind  a  pile  of  wood,  under  the  neighbouring  shed, 
some  one  has  approached  very  stealthily.  It  is  Tonin, 
the  young  sailor.  Tonin,  who  likes  her  very  much  and 
who  wants  to  marry  her.  She  also  likes  Tonin,  but  she 
prefers  Victorin,  who  is  two  years  younger.  Victorin 
is  only  eighteen  years  old  —  just  her  own  age.  She 
prefers  Victorin,  or  at  least  she  thinks  she  does.  Vic- 
torin will  not  be  a  sailor.  He  doesn't  love  the  sea,  but 
the  land  which  one  works  and  which  gives  in  return  its 
yield.  And  then  Tonin  has  never  told  Mariette  that  he 
loves  her.  Only  she  believes  that  things  stand  that  way, 
and  the  eyes  of  young  girls  can  see  love  even  when  it 
thinks  itself  unseen.  Love  always  reveals  itself. 

The  bucket  rises  and  is  getting  heavier  and  heavier,  one 
would  think.  Tonin  advances  softly.  She  doesn't  hear 
him  and  suddenly  she  feels  herself  grasped  about  her 
body  by  two  strong  arms  which  hold  her  fast.  In  her 
surprise  she  lets  go  the  rope.  But  Tonin  has  adroitly 
taken  the  precaution  to  put  his  foot  on  the  serpentine 
coil  of  hemp  which  lies  unrolled  behind  the  young  girl. 
So  the  bucket  doesn't  fall. 

"  Let  me  go,  Tonin!     I  shall  tell  my  mother!  " 


MARIETTAS  GIFT  145 

He  smiles  and  kisses  her  on  her  lips,  on  her  neck  and 
on  her  hair.  She  slips  between  the  fingers  of  the  young 
lover  and  escapes  him. 

"  Pull  up  the  bucket  as  a  penalty!  " 

He  obeys.  The  wooden  vessel  rises  rapidly,  appears 
in  the  frame  of  the  little  door,  balanced,  oscillating,  let- 
ting pour  over  its  rim,  indented  by  usage,  little  chaplets 
of  water  drops,  transparent  pearls,  all  smiling  to  see  the 
light  of  day. 

"  Thank  you,  Tonin !  " 

"  You  pardon  me,  Mariette?  " 

"  Yes,  because  you  are  brave  at  heart.     I  know  it." 

With  us  "  brave  "  means  "  good  and  well-behaved." 

"  And  then,"  she  adds,  "  I  have  never  before  seen  you 
dressed  as  a  sailor.  It  is  true  that  you  are  a  good  look- 
ing fellow,  like  that,  although  with  your  shirt,  with  its 
collar  open  to  the  breast,  and  the  pompon  on  your  cap, 
you  look  something  like  a  girl." 

"  A  girl !  "  he  answers.  "  Girls  like  me  you  want  to 
beware  of,  Mariette.  But  not  of  me;  for  it  is  with  a  good 
motive  that  I  have  come  to  see  you." 

"  Ah,"  she  replies,  dreamily. 

Now  the  bucket  is  placed  on  the  margin  of  the  well 
and  the  water  looks  so  fresh  that  one  is  eager  to  drink  it. 
Like  a  bird  Mariette  bends  over  and  drinks. 

"  It  is  lucky,  the  water  that  you  drink,  Mariette,"  he 
says.  "  And  you  yourself  are  so  fresh  and  pure  that 


146      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

you  resemble  it.  One  could  drink  you  up  in  a  glass  of 
water." 

And  when  the  lips  of  the  young  girl  have  quit  the  rim 
of  the  bucket  he  places  his  own  there  in  the  same  place. 
It  is  love  that  they  drink  at  the  close  of  this  spring  day. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  like  this,  Tonin?  " 

"  Mariette,"  he  answers,  "  I  am  now  a  sailor.  I  have 
come  to  tell  you  that  I  love  you.  I  have  not  dared  to  do 
so  until  now.  But  being  obliged  to  go  away  this  eve- 
ning has  given  me  courage.  Listen!  I  know  that  Vic- 
torin  pays  court  to  you.  So  I  have  some  fears.  And 
I  ask  you  not  to  give  me  an  answer  right  away.  Take 
your  time!  Reflect!  Study  him  and  then  choose. 
Adieu,  my  little  Mariette.  We  shall  see  each  other 
again.  I  haven't  much  property  to  my  name.  But  I 
have  a  little.  Think  about  it.  But  wait,  let  me  fill 
your  pitcher  and  carry  it  home  for  you." 

"No,"  she  says,  "Victorin  would  hear  about  it.  It 
is  true  that  we  are  not  yet  engaged,  he  and  I.  But  it  is 
certain  that  I  like  him  and  he  knows  it  very  well.  Adieu, 
Tonin.  I  would  rather  carry  my  pitcher  alone." 

She  started  off,  carrying  her  pitcher  by  the  handle,  like 
a  basket — her  green,  glazed  pitcher,  glittering  in  the 
last  rays  of  the  sun.  But  she  was  troubled.  Her  heart 
beat  visibly  under  her  corsage.  Tonin  felt  that  he  had 
made  something  of  an  impression  on  her  and  called  to 
her  from  a  distance: 


MARIETTE'S  GIFT  147 

"  Before  the  end  of  the  year,  if  you  decide  for  me, 
send  me  in  a  letter,  on  board  my  ship,  a  leaf  of  the  ivy 
which  covers  your  well.  You  need  not  write  anything. 
I  shall  know  what  you  mean  to  say,  Mariette.  Because 
the  ivy  leaf  has  the  same  shape  as  a  heart." 

She  turned  about  uncertainly,  and  in  spite  of  herself, 
afraid  of  losing  too  quickly  a  hope  of  love,  she  threw 
him  a  kiss  with  her  free  hand. 

Some  months  later  Tonin,  the  fusileer  of  marines,  lay 
on  a  couch  in  the  naval  hospital  of  Sainte  Anne,  at  Tou- 
lon. Tonin  was  one  of  the  heroes  of  Dixmude.  The 
poor  young  man  had  shown  there  a  most  admirable  gal- 
lantry. But,  wounded  by  a  shell  explosion,  he  had  been 
obliged  to  submit  to  the  amputation  of  his  left  arm. 
And  though  Tonin,  before  his  comrades,  preserved  ap- 
pearances, joked  and  made  light  of  his  affliction,  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart  he  felt  a  profound  despair.  From 
the  beginning,  and  with  reason,  he  had  said  that,  thus 
disfigured,  he  was  no  longer  a  fiance  worthy  of  the  Mar- 
iette who  was  so  physically  attractive,  of  the  pretty  little 
girl  with  the  willowy  body,  so  full  of  graces,  of  the  Ma- 
riette of  the  well,  the  well  covered  with  ivy. 

Oh!  That  ivy  shading  and  guarding  the  well!  There 
had  been  nights  of  fever  in  which  Tonin  saw  it  again  con- 
stantly, stirred  and  ruffled  by  the  wind  and  taking  a  thou- 
sand changing,  fantastic  forms.  Now  faces  made  grim- 


148      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

aces  at  him  from  between  the  clusters  of  foliage,  and 
they  were  the  faces  of  German  soldiers  peeping  at  Tonin, 
a  sentinel  far  away  from  his  comrades.  Now  he  seemed 
to  see  the  mouths  of  cannon  thrust  from  the  verdure,  then 
bursts  of  flame;  then  he  heard  the  sound  of  pebbles 
rolled  by  the  sea  which  the  machine  guns  make.  Some- 
times all  the  bees  and  all  the  angry  wasps  which  rove 
about  the  ivy  and  the  well,  in  which  they  find  something 
to  eat  and  drink,  precipitated  themselves  on  him  in 
swarms,  and  all,  all  of  them,  set  to  stinging  his  left  arm, 
his  mutilated  arm,  in  which  he  now  felt  these  myriads 
of  bites. 

"No.  No.  Poor  me!  It  is  certain  that  I  can  no 
longer  be  a  husband  worthy  of  her !  " 

He  kept  repeating  this  to  himself  in  a  mechanical  way, 
and  sometimes,  when  he  felt  himself  alone  in  the  vast 
hall  where  his  fellow  patients  slept,  Tonin  put  his  head 
under  his  bed  covers  and  wept. 

Nobody  paid  him  a  visit.  Tonin  was  an  orphan. 
There  remained  of  his  family  only  his  old  grandmother, 
who  was  now  very  feeble  and  altogether  incapable  of 
quitting,  in  midwinter,  her  poor  corner  by  the  fire.  So 
Tonin,  fusileer  in  the  infantry  of  the  marine,  who  had 
borne  himself  like  a  hero  on  the  banks  of  the  Yser,  wept 
like  a  little  child. 

He  had  reason  for  doing  so.  For  at  that  very  moment 
Mariette  was  shuddering  with  horror  at  the  idea  of  see- 


MARIETTAS  GIFT  149 

ing  him  again,  mutilated,  with  his  arm  cut  off.  Her 
imagination  pictured  the  poor  empty  sleeve,  hanging  free, 
and  she  turned  away  her  head  to  look  at  something  else, 
as  if  what  she  saw  in  imagination  was  really  there  be- 
fore her  eyes. 

Then  Tonin's  rival  appeared  to  her  in  a  more  advan- 
tageous light  than  ever.  She  met  him  and  smiled  at 
him  from  afar,  calling  to  him  even  before  he  called  to 
her.  Without  doubt,  the  military  conscription  law  would 
take  him,  too,  after  a  while.  But  who  knows?  The  war 
might  end  —  perhaps  very  soon.  And  it  is  the  present, 
after  all,  that  counts.  What  is  in  the  future  is  unreal  and 
may  remain  unreal.  Tonin  belonged  now  to  the  maimed 
and  the  halt.  Victorin  was  sound  in  body  —  a  man  like 
all  the  rest  of  the  world. 

So  when  Victorin  came  to  say  to  her,  "  Before  going 
away  to  service  I  should  like  to  know,  Mariette,  whether, 
on  my  return,  I  can  count  on  our  being  married,"  she 
had  replied:  "Come  tomorrow  to  see  my  mother;  she 
will  give  you  an  answer." 

And  Victorin  had  gone  away,  completely  happy. 

The  old  grandmother  is  incapable  of  writing  a  letter, 
and  without  knowing  that  Tonin  has  courted  Mariette 
she  sends  for  her,  because  Mariette  is  clever.  And 
Mariette  comes. 

"  Good  day,  grandmother!  " 

"  You  have  heard  of  our  misfortune?  " 


150      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"Yes,  grandmother,  I  have.  And  I  am  sorry  for 
you." 

"  I  have  sent  for  you  to  ask  you  to  write  for  me  a  little 
letter  to  my  Tonin,  who  is  still  in  the  hospital  at  Toulon." 

Mariette  begins  to  write.     The  grandmother  dictates: 

"  My  poor  Tonin,  I  cannot  go  to  see  you  in  your  hos- 
pital, because  my  legs  will  not  carry  me.  But  I  think 
of  you  often.  And  this  is  to  tell  you  that  I  want  for 
nothing;  for  you  have  left  enough  to  support  me  and  the 
notary  delivers  my  allowance  regularly.  Our  neighbour 
Catherine  helps  me  as  much  as  she  can.  It  is  a  shame 
that  she  doesn't  know  how  to  write.  If  she  did  you 
would  have  heard  from  me  more  frequently. 

"  You  have  always  been  a  good  boy  and  you  should 
not  despair.  Handsome  as  you  are,  my  dear  grandson, 
and  in  spite  of  the  misfortune  which  has  overtaken  you, 
you  will  find  a  good  and  brave  wife.  I  assure  you  of 
this,  for  I  understand  the  reason  why  you  have  suffered 
and  that  it  was  for  our  defence. 

"  But  I  write  to  tell  you  that  New  Year's  Day  is  com- 
ing and  that  I  have  made  some  little  savings  in  order  to 
send  you  a  present  and  to  give  you  the  sort  of  pleasure 
which  you  used  to  have  when  you  were  a  little  child. 
Let  me  know  in  your  reply  what  I  can  send  you  which 
will  please  you  most  or  what  you  are  most  in  need  of. 
Your  grandmother,  who  loves  you,  signs  her  name  with 


MARIETTAS  GIFT  151 

After  the  letter  was  finished: 

"  My  dear,  you  will  put  the  letter  in  the  post,  will 
you  not?  " 

"  Yes,  grandmother,  tomorrow  morning,  without  fail." 

And  Mariette  departs,  carrying  the  letter  with  her. 
She  said  to  herself: 

"  It  did  not  occur  to  grandmother  to  say  that  it  was  I 
who  held  the  pen.  So  much  the  better;  it  is  not  well 
that  he  should  think  of  me." 

Home  again,  Mariette,  since  it  was  near  sun-down, 
took  her  glazed  pitcher  and  went  to  the  well. 

It  was  winter.  The  setting  sun  was  red  —  red  as  in 
June  —  but  cold.  In  the  ivy  there  were  neither  wasps 
nor  buzzing  bees.  She  opened  the  well  door.  An  icy 
breath  came  up  from  below,  which  made  her  shiver,  as 
if  it  had  come  from  a  tomb.  The  pulley  made  a  grating 
noise  and  its  cry  sounded  like  a  groan  heard  through 
tears.  She  drew  the  bucket  up  from  the  well,  and  each 
time  that  one  of  her  arms  let  go  the  rope  to  grasp  it 
higher  up  she  thought  with  dread  of  Tonin's  amputated 
arm.  Never,  never,  would  he  come  to  the  well  to  draw 
water  for  her.  Never  again  would  he  seize  her  body  in 
his  two  arms.  Poor  Tonin!  Poor  Tonin! 

Then  she  seated  herself  on  the  sill  of  the  well,  and, 
with  her  face  hidden  in  her  hands,  Mariette  wept. 

She  wept  a  long  time.  Then  she  went  back  home, 
opened  the  grandmother's  letter  and  added  some  lines: 


152      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  It  is  your  little  friend  Mariette  who  holds  the  pen 
and  writes  all  this.  And  she  tells  me  to  tell  you  not  to 
worry  yourself  thinking  about  a  gift  which  will  please 
you  most.  And  she  will  send  it  in  the  letter,  so  that  it 
will  reach  you  tomorrow,  which  is  New  Year's  Eve." 

On  his  bed  in  the  hospital  Tonin  opens  a  letter.  Some- 
thing falls  out  of  it.  It  is  an  ivy  leaf. 

He  utters  a  cry  of  joy  which  makes  all  the  wounded 
men  in  the  big  hall  lift  their  heads.  They  all  understood 
very  quickly,  for  a  beautiful  young  girl  runs  toward 
Tonin's  bed  and  they  murmur: 

"  It  is  his  promised  bride." 

She  did  not  wish  to  arrive  until  after  he  had  received 
the  letter,  so  that  he  might  not  have  too  much  joy  all 
at  once.  And,  in  fact,  his  happiness  chokes  him.  But 
he  has  strength  to  cry  out  to  his  comrades,  while  he 
embraces  Mariette  with  his  good  arm: 

"  Think  of  it,  my  friends !  She  takes  me  as  I  am. 
She  has  brought  me  herself  as  a  New  Year's  gift!  " 


THE  SONATA  TO  THE  STAR 
ANONYMOUS 

iO  be  no  longer  alone  —  at  last!  To  have  you  with 
me  for  a  little  while!  " 

Seated  at  his  wife's  feet,  Jacques  Nancy  gazed  up  at 
her  tenderly.  She  "had  arrived,  two  days  before,  in  the 
little  village  in  the  Vosges  where  Jacques  lived,  behind 
the  front,  while  his  regiment  had  its  respite  from  first- 
line  duty.  Enraptured,  he  kissed  the  tips  of  her  slender 
fingers  or  contemplated  her  adorable  face,  rose-coloured 
as  a  fuchsia  beneath  her  black  hair  braids. 

"  Darling,"  she  said,  with  a  caressing  touch  on  his 
shoulder,  "  it  is  really  charming  here  —  this  room  hung 
with  cretonne,  the  view  over  the  fringed  fir  trees,  and, 
in  the  garden,  all  the  roses  blooming  so  unconsciously 
under  this  tragic  sky." 

"  More  than  that,  Laura.  Every  evening  the  serenade 
of  the  Boche  cannon.  It  is  intermission  time  just  now." 

She  looked  about  her.     Then  she  added: 

"  I  am  especially  pleased  that  you  have  a  piano." 

And,  certainly,  for  a  young  composer,  the  use  of  a 
piano  is  an  infinitely  precious  thing. 

"Nevertheless,  I  hardly  ever  open  it,"  he  answered. 
153 


154      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Now,  with  you  here,  this  beautiful  night  in  June,  I  am 
going  to  play  a  little  in  your  honour.  I  am  going  to 
crown  you  with  a  garland  of  harmony." 

Quickly  taken  with  the  idea,  he  arose,  opened  the  pi- 
ano and  awakened  the  soul  of  its  sonorous  keyboard. 
The  resonance  of  the  chords  travelled  in  swelling  waves 
out  into  the  balmy  night,  itself  immobile  as  a  lake  of  si- 
lence. Cherishing  her  husband's  art  and  devoted  to  his 
fame,  Laura  listened  with  eager  attention. 

First  came  some  arpeggios,  with  liquid  notes,  as  if  to 
prove  the  suppleness  of  the  player's  fingers  and  the 
docility  of  the  instrument.  Then  a  melody  appeared, 
trembled,  hesitated,  became  defined,  and,  suddenly,  sure 
of  itself,  rolled  forth  robustly,  with  many  nuances  —  a 
musical  creation,  born  in  this  night  of  tenderness,  which 
seemed  to  live  and  pulsate,  all  armed  to  capture  the 
hearts  and  thrill  the  nerves  of  the  multitude. 

Laura  grew  pale  with  excitement  as  she  listened. 

She  expected  an  improvisation,  facile  and  brilliant. 
But  her  musical  ear  detected  in  Jacques's  composition  a 
new  quality,  an  accent  of  profundity,  hitherto  unheard, 
the  sacred  touch  of  the  grand  art.  No,  she  was  not  de- 
ceived. An  inspiration  dominated  the  young  composer. 
A  god  was  there,  invisible  and  glowing,  teaching  him 
an  original  harmony,  high  and  pure.  On  the  edge  of 
the  field  of  battle,  in  the  presence  of  Death  and  Love, 
genius  was  visiting  the  young  musician.  Outside  the 


THE  SONATA  TO  THE  STAR        155 

deep  night  seemed  to  listen  also,  with  its  nightingales 
and  its  roses. 

And  Jacques,  self-absorbed,  felt  mounting  in  him,  like 
a  mysterious  fountain  jet,  a  lavish  and  ardent  inspira- 
tion. Speechless,  he  vibrated  to  the  melody  which  came 
from  his  fingers  and  his  heart.  All  the  passionate  sweet- 
ness of  the  hour,  the  presence  of  his  beautiful  wife,  the 
force  of  the  Heroic  Life  were  translated  into  his  music. 
It  equalled  the  work  of  the  masters.  It  would  gain  im- 
mortality. 

Suddenly  the  cannon  thundered  again  —  three,  ten, 
twenty  shots.  The  air  was  filled  with  terrific  concus- 
sions. Jacques  murmured: 

"  They  are  beginning  to  bombard  the  Fontaine-le- 
Prince  Road,  over  which  our  supply  convoys  pass." 

And,  with  a  sonorous  fortissimo,  he  dominated  the 
noise  of  the  bombardment.  To  the  amorous  andante 
succeeded  a  tempest  of  sumptuous  accords  and,  with  a 
burst  of  lyricism,  the  sonata  completed  itself  like  a  trum- 
pet call. 

Jacques  sprang  from  his  chair.  Laura  grasped  his 
hands.  He  said,  almost  breathlessly: 

"  It  was  beautiful,  wasn't  it?  Never  until  tonight 
have  I  had  the  certitude  of  having  composed  a  real  work. 
It  needs  only  a  transition  passage.  I  feel  it  —  so  per- 
fect, so  pure!  Yet  I  have  a  deadly  fear  that  I  shall  not 
be  able  to  put  it  into  music." 


156      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  You  will  be  able,"  she  answered  fervently.  "  While 
listening  to  you  I  watched,  there,  on  your  right,  that 
rising  star.  It  is  your  star,  Jacques." 

"No;  you  are  my  star,"  said  Jacques.  "I  feel  that 
I  shall  succeed  because  I  am  sustained  by  your  tender- 
ness. And  I  dedicate  to  you  my  '  Sonata  to  the  Star.' 
But  I  am  exhausted.  I  am  going  to  sleep  for  a  few 
hours.  When  I  awake  I  shall  write  out  my  composition. 
Laura,  I  am  very  happy." 

Throwing  himself  on  a  divan,  he  fell  asleep. 

Some  one  knocked  on  the  door.  Noiselessly  Laura 
opened  it.  She  recognized  a  sergeant,  a  friend  of  her 
husband's. 

"  Is  Lieutenant  Nancy  here,  madame?  " 

"  He  is  asleep.     But  I  am  his  wife." 

"  I  recognize  you  now,  madame.  Here  is  an  urgent 
message  for  the  lieutenant.  He  is  to  carry  it  to  Captain 
Berger,  at  the  place  indicated." 

The  man  saluted  and  went  away.  Laura  looked  at  the 
address.  Captain  Berger  was  at  Fontaine-le-Prince. 

She  gave  a  shudder. 

Her  husband  had  shown  her  the  clock  tower  of  that 
village  and  the  road  which  led  to  it  —  an  unsheltered 
road  which  the  shells  were  even  now  riddling  with  holes. 
The  evening  before  three  messengers  had  been  killed  on 
this  road,  and  now  Jacques,  in  his  turn,  was  to  travel 
over  it. 


THE  SONATA  TO  THE  STAR        157 

A  frightful  panic  seized  the  young  wife.  With  her 
fear  for  her  husband's  safety  another  thought  mingled: 

"And  the  sonata?  " 

That  work,  the  first  work  born  of  his  genius,  an  im- 
mortal message  of  art  to  men?  And  the  melodic  in- 
spiration, perfect  and  pure,  which  he  felt  working  in 
him?  Ought  he  to  go,  risk  his  life,  die  and  leave  nothing 
behind  him? 

Thinking  of  his  danger,  she  was  wrung  with  an  atro- 
cious anguish.  No,  it  was  impossible  that  before  the 
morning  came  he  should  expose  himself  to  sudden  death. 
She  would  courageously  accept  for  her  husband  the  most 
perilous  of  duties,  and  thereby  assure  his  glory,  one 
work  the  more  for  France  and  immortality  for  his  name. 

The  letter  was  to  be  delivered  at  once. 

She  hesitated  no  longer.  Had  he  not  said  that  she  was 
his  star?  And  ought  she  not  to  protect  his  genius? 
Wrapping  her  husband's  greatcoat  about  her,  fitting  his 
kepi  to  her  head,  and  pulling  down  the  hood  of  the  coat, 
she  stole  silently  into  the  shed,  got  out  the  motorcycle 
and  started  off  into  the  night,  filled  with  the  thunder  of 
cannon.  Now  she  was  returning,  bent  over  the  machine, 
fortified  by  her  own  heroism,  proud  to  have  fulfilled  her 
mission  and  not  a  little  astonished  that  she  should  have 
undertaken  it.  What  unknown  force  sometimes  takes 
possession  of  us!  Captain  Berger,  ready  to  get  under 
way,  mounted  on  his  horse,  had  received  her  in  the  sha- 


158      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

dow  and  had  not  recognized  a  woman's  face  under  the 
lowered  hood. 

Now,  having  escaped  death  twenty  times,  she  was  com- 
ing back  with  all  possible  speed.  Mon  Dieu!  Perhaps 
Jacques  would  not  have  passed  uninjured  through  the 
shell  fire,  as  she  had  done.  There  came  to  her  a  joyous 
contempt  of  danger.  She  no  longer  believed  in  it.  She 
felt  herself  immune.  Her  goal  drew  near.  The  bom- 
bardment diminished  in  intensity.  A  supply  convoy 
passed  her. 

A  shell  burst  in  the  road.  There  was  a  cry  in  the 
night.  Horses  neighed;  men  cursed.  But  the  convoy 
reformed  and  passed  on,  leaving  in  the  darkness  the 
single  victim  of  the  projectile,  a  woman  who  had  fallen 
to  the  ground,  her  body  half  shattered  by  the  exploding 
shell. 

She  had  not  lost  consciousness.  She  still  breathed,  her 
mouth  full  of  warm  blood,  having  but  one  thought  of 
devotion  and  love. 

"  Fortunately  it  was  not  he!  " 

She  dragged  herself  along  the  road,  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  house  with  the  garden  full  of  roses  and,  suddenly, 
a  melody  came  floating  toward  her. 

It  was  the  principal  theme  of  the  Sonata.  The  chef 
d'ceuvre,  free,  powerful  and  noble,  was  at  last  per- 
fected. Perhaps  Jacques,  in  his  fever  of  composition, 
had  not  yet  noticed  his  wife's  disappearance.  The  can- 


THE  SONATA  TO  THE  STAR        159 

non  were  silent,  and,  as  if  a  pure  victim  had  been  needed 
to  nourish  his  genius,  again  the  inspiration  burned  in  him 
like  a  lambent  flame.  He  developed  the  new  rhythm, 
which  was  going  to  enchant  the  multitude.  The  pure  and 
perfect  phrase  mounted  into  the  night,  a  rounded  curve 
of  melody,  and,  like  a  cradle  song  or  a  requiem,  the 
"  Sonata  to  the  Star"  soothed  the  dying  Laura's  last 
agony. 


THE  PIPE 
ANONYMOUS 

IT  was  a  beautiful  meerschaum  pipe,  with  a  mouth- 
piece of  amber.  It  represented  a  zouave's  face, 
cheery  and  genial,  terminating  in  a  double-pointed  beard. 
The  tassel  of  the  cap  hung  down  on  the  neck. 

The  day  when  Louis  Journee  received  this  pipe  —  that 
was  an  eventful  day.  One  hasn't  many  distractions  in 
the  trenches,  and  the  hours  drag  along  with  a  desolating 
tediousness.  So  the  arrival  of  packages  is  a  powerful 
dispeller  of  ennui. 

For  a  long  time  nothing  had  come  for  Journee.  He 
had  no  relatives,  to  his  knowledge,  and  was  practically 
alone  in  the  world.  He  had  lived  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
—  no  one  knew  just  how,  tenacious  of  existence,  as  cats 
are;  by  no  means  good  looking,  shabby  and  thin,  with  a 
face  which  seemed  to  have  been  carved  out  of  a  radish. 
He  had  no  trade  and  was  forced  to  make  a  living  out  of 
whatever  came  along.  He  was  a  philosopher  in  his 
way.  He  had  learned  at  least  two  things.  First,  that 
one  is  never  really  happy;  and,  second,  that  one  can 
always  manage  not  to  starve  to  death. 

Louis  Journee  had  been  at  the  front  five  months  when 
a  package  was  sent  to  him  through  the  agency  of  a  relief 
160 


THE  PIPE  161 

society.  It  contained  some  knitted  things.  The  person 
who  made  them  also  sent  a  gracious  little  letter.  Her 
name  was  Mile.  Descossoles.  She  was  certainly  one  of 
those  maiden  ladies  who,  in  a  corner  of  some  remote 
province,  seek  without  much  success  to  satisfy  those  de- 
sires for  service  which  flower  in  a  heart  which  doesn't 
know  how  to  grow  old. 

Journee  had  much  natural  politeness.  He  judged  that 
the  gift,  even  though  sent  thus  indirectly,  deserved  a  per- 
sonal acknowledgment.  He  wrote,  with  some  difficulty, 
a  few  words  of  thanks.  That  bit  of  a  letter  quite  upset 
Mile.  Descossoles,  who  trembled  with  emotion,  in  her 
morose  solitude,  at  the  idea  of  having  an  interest  in  some 
one  at  the  front.  Wild  with  joy,  she  at  once  constituted 
herself  the  godmother  of  Journee,  and  began  to  send 
him  linen,  chocolate  and  boxes  of  conserves.  A  regular 
correspondence  established  itself  between  the  soldier 
and  his  godmother. 

She  finally  asked  him  what  special  thing  he  wanted 
most.  He  refused  at  first  to  say.  She  insisted.  At  last 
he  told  her  that  it  was  a  pipe. 

Then  it  came,  all  white  and  gold,  extravagant,  comic, 
luxurious,  like  an  object  in  a  showcase.  His  comrades 
gathered  about  him.  They  regarded  the  gift  with  some- 
thing like  veneration. 

Some  of  them  said,  their  eyes  sparkling  with  covetous- 


162      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  For  a  pipe,  that  is  really  a  pipe." 

Journee  decided  finally  to  fill  it  and  light  it.  He 
smoked  it  with  a  feeling  of  blessedness,  his  brain  full  of 
vague  and  happy  ideas,  penetrated  with  the  confused  feel- 
ing that  this  day  was  the  most  memorable  in  his  life, 
and  that  a  man  who  could  smoke  such  a  pipe  was  at  least 
the  equal  of  kings. 

The  next  day  Migot,  a  blacksmith  of  rude  appearance 
but  with  a  sardonic  fancy,  called  out  to  him: 

"  Say,  Journee,  if  you  are  killed  by  the  Boches  we 
shall  inherit  your  pipe." 

This  pleasantry  appealed  to  all  the  men.  They  found 
it  so  droll  that  not  a  day  passed  without  one  of  them  re- 
peating it.  The  most  stupid  repeated  it,  as  well  as  the 
most  intelligent.  Pallons,  who  was  a  poor  devil  of  a 
shepherd  and  half  an  idiot,  used  it  no  less  than  Goul- 
lainne.  who  was  professor  in  a  faculty. 

"  Try  to  get  killed  quickly,  so  that  we  may  inherit  your 
pipe!  » 

At  first  Journee  felt  cold  chills  running  down  his  back; 
for  he  had  no  desire  whatever  to  be  killed.  But  after  a 
while  he  got  used  to  this  specimen  of  poilu  facetiousness. 

In  writing  to  his  godmother  he  passed  the  saying  along 
to  her,  with  a  certain  pride  in  showing  how  general  was 
the  opinion  of  his  comrades  on  that  point.  But  for  fear 
that  his  benefactress  might  think  ill  of  his  fellows  he 
added  candidly: 


THE  PIPE  163 

"  But  all  this,  mademoiselle,  is  only  a  jest." 

Mile.  Descossoles  found  the  pleasantries  of  the  trenches 
rather  peculiar.  For  her  part,  she  could  not  understand 
the  humour  of  that  kind  of  badinage. 

One  morning  very  early  they  asked  for  volunteers  to 
reconnoitre  the  enemy's  positions.  Journee  offered  him- 
self, as  did  three  others.  They  crawled  to  the  top  of  an 
eminence  which  dominated  the  most  advanced  German 
lines.  While  the  sergeant  who  accompanied  them  noted 
the  lay  of  the  land  the  men  slid  down  behind  the  ridge, 
which  protected  them.  Seated  there,  they  lighted  their 
pipes.  Suddenly  a  shell  burst  in  their  midst. 

Journee  had  the  upper  part  of  his  body  torn  off  and 
thrown  some  feet  away.  The  others  fell,  mangled  by  the 
explosion.  Only  the  sergeant  escaped.  He  left  his  dan- 
gerous position  and  returned  slowly  to  find  his  company. 

"What's  the  matter?"  they  asked  him.  "You  are 
alone." 

"  A  shell,"  he  answered.     "  All  killed." 

"And  Journee?" 

"  Journee  is  there  with  the  others." 

Journee  was  very  popular  with  his  comrades.  Their 
faces  became  grave.  Day  broke  tardily,  pale  and  list- 
less, as  if  saddened  at  what  it  was  about  to  see. 

When  night  came  again  the  sergeant  decided  that  they 
should  go  to  look  for  the  dead  men  in  order  to  bury  them 
within  the  lines.  Many  offered  themselves  for  that  mis- 


164      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

sion.  Goullainne  and  Pallons  wished  to  bring  in  Jour- 
nee.  The  sergeant  guided  them.  From  watching  so 
many  nights  the  soldiers  had  gotten  so  that  they  could 
see  pretty  well  in  the  darkness.  They  discovered  in  the 
underbrush  the  dead  of  the  night  before.  They  brought 
them  back  for  burial. 

Safe  in  the  rear,  they  searched  the  corpses  for  their 
identification  papers  and  for  souvenirs. 

"  And  the  pipe?  "  said  Migot,  when  they  went  through 
Journee's  pockets. 

"  He  was  smoking  when  he  was  killed,"  answered  the 
sergeant. 

They  could  not  find  the  pipe.  Goullainne  recalled 
that  he  thought  he  had  seen  it  in  the  underbrush. 

"  For  Heaven's  sake!  "  cried  Migot.  "  Why  didn't  you 
pick  it  up?  " 

"  You'll  have  to  go  and  get  it  yourself." 

"  I'll  go.  Journee  has  always  said  that  he  would  be- 
queath it  to  us,  if  he  were  killed.  A  beautiful  pipe  like 
that  —  would  you  leave  it  to  the  Germans?  " 

"  You  are  a  fool,"  said  the  sergeant.  "  Are  you  going 
to  go  back  there  now?  " 

In  fact,  the  bombardment  had  begun  again.  All  the 
ground  in  front  of  the  trenches  was  slashed  with  shells. 
Migot  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  left  the  shelter.  He 
crawled  slowly  and  nonchalantly.  Dawn  came.  One 


THE  PIPE  165 

could  hear  nothing  but  the  incessant  roar  of  the  cannon. 
The  sun's  rays  were  reflected  on  the  blue  tips  of  the  grass. 

On  a  certain  large  space  the  soil  was  dug  up  here  and 
there  and  the  undergrowth  was  destroyed.  On  the  earth 
there  were  brown  spots. 

"  Here  is  the  place,"  Migot  said  to  himself. 

He  looked  about  him.  In  a  moment  or  two  he  spied 
some  feet  away  Journee's  beautiful  pipe.  He  put  it  in 
his  pocket  and  returned  without  mishap. 

He  was  received  with  shouts  of  laughter. 

"  Have  you  got  it?  " 

"  I  surely  have  it." 

"  But  while  you  were  away  we  buried  the  owner." 

Migot  walked  to  the  place  where  Goullainne  and  Pal- 
Ions  were  still  digging  Journee's  grave.  The  remains 
rested  on  a  sheet.  Migot  looked  at  them.  He  felt  a 
strange  tugging  at  his  heart.  Here  was  another  who 
would  never  return!  What  a  brave  fellow  Journee  was! 

Suddenly  he  felt  in  his  pocket  the  pipe,  the  beautiful 
pipe.  It  was  heavy  as  stone.  He  remembered  his 
ghastly  pleasantry  and  was  ashamed.  How  could  he 
keep  that  which  had  been  the  last  consolation  of  his 
comrade? 

He  drew  out  the  white  meerschaum  pipe  with  the 
laughing  face  of  the  zouave,  and  placed  it  on  the  sheet 
which  held  what  remained  of  Journee. 


166      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Here,"  he  said  to  the  volunteer  gravediggers,  "  bury 
this,  too.  Journee  ought  to  have  it  with  him  wherever 
he  goes.  It  came  from  the  only  woman  in  the  world 
who  ever  gave  him  even  a  little  of  her  love." 


I 


THE  RENDEZVOUS 
ANONYMOUS 

N  the  interval  between  the  moment  when  she  heard 
the  train  signal  and  the  moment  when  the  cars  pulled 
in  under  the  arches  of  the  station  she  reviewed  her  life 
—  or,  at  least,  the  years,  months  and  hours  of  which  she 
had  retained  the  most  poignant  memories. 

Her  marriage,  her  monotonous  and,  then,  unhappy 
life  in  a  little  garrison  town;  her  uncongenial  home,  dif- 
ferences in  tastes,  quarrels;  the  emptiness  of  the  days, 
the  solitude  of  the  evenings;  the  sleepless  nights,  in  which 
one  longs  regretfully  for  that  which  might  have  been  and 
in  which  one  dreads  the  dawn  and  what  each  new  morn- 
ing must  bring  in  the  way  of  weariness,  discouragement 
and  ennui. 

The  Place,  planted  with  linden  trees,  where,  when  one 
day  she  had  complained  of  being  neglected,  her  husband 
had  simply  shrugged  his  shoulders;  the  little  street,  its 
paving  stones  encircled  with  moss  (with  the  straight, 
narrow  windows,  behind  which  one  is  sure  there  are 
watchful  eyes  and  alert  ears),  where,  when  she  had  said 
to  him:  "I  am  a  virtuous  woman;  I  wish  to  remain  a 
virtuous  woman;  but  you  push  me  too  far,"  he  had 
167 


168      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

turned  on  her  brutally,  as  he  opened  the  door  of  their 
house,  and  answered :  "  Don't  bore  me  by  talking  about 
your  virtue."  Next,  the  meeting  with  him  whom  she 
ought  to  have  known  long  before  —  their  great  love  with 
its  poisoned  joys.  Then  the  resolution  to  break  with 
everything,  the  confession,  the  divorce  refused  her  by 
her  husband,  without  anger,  with  a  grin,  maliciously. 
And,  finally,  the  war:  the  chilling  solitude;  the  anguish 
of  feeling  her  thoughts  divided,  after  all,  between  two 
persons;  the  dispatch  announcing  her  husband's  death. 

The  train  was  in  the  station.  Among  the  faces  appear- 
ing at  the  doors  she  recognized  at  once  the  one  which  she 
sought.  People  jostled  her;  she  dared  not  run  and 
mingle  with  the  crowd.  A  year  weighted  with  anxieties 
separated  them.  A  happiness  created  by  a  bereavement 
so  brutal  reunited  them.  She  waited  for  him  to  see  her, 
to  call  to  her,  to  make  some  sign.  He  recognized  her 
and  walked  quickly  toward  her. 

On  the  platform,  where  no  one  knew  them,  where  she 
was  only  a  woman  among  so  many  other  women  awaiting 
eagerly  the  return  of  a  soldier,  nothing  would  have  pre- 
vented him  from  taking  her  into  his  arms.  But  he 
stopped  in  front  of  her,  his  head  uncovered.  They  re- 
mained face  to  face,  without  either  speaking.  Couples 
passed  close  by  them;  old  women  embraced  little  troop- 
ers, and  old  men,  clad  in  blue,  with  caps  of  blue,  lifted 
from  the  ground  and  kissed  little  children,  who  stared  at 


THE  RENDEZVOUS  169 

them  with  wide  open  eyes.  They  caught  on  the  wing 
scraps  of  conversation  like  these: 

"You  look  well!  How  he  has  grown!  You  are  not 
tired?  It  was  great  luck  that  I  could  come  just  now!  " 

They  looked  and  listened  and  were  astonished  —  they 
who  perhaps  more  than  any  others  had  waited  for  this 
moment  —  to  be  the  only  ones  looking  and  listening. 

Having  made  their  rendezvous  in  a  strange  city  in 
order  to  have  more  freedom,  the  station  door  once  passed, 
they  felt  the  unfamiliarity  of  their  surroundings  even  to 
the  point  of  exchanging  only  commonplace  remarks. 

"What  shall  we  do?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  arrived  here  only  an  hour  ago. 
What  would  you  like  to  do?  " 

"  Suppose  we  take  a  carriage?  " 

An  old  cab  stood  outside  the  station.  The  driver 
asked: 

"  Where  shall  I  drive  you,  Lieutenant?  " 

"  We  don't  want  to  go  anywhere  in  particular.  Show 
us  the  city." 

The  horses  set  off  at  a  trot.  They  drove  across  the 
town.  The  jolting  on  the  pavements  made  the  windows 
rattle.  Each  pressed  the  other's  hand  in  silence.  In  a 
street  where  the  grade  was  steep  and  the  horses  dropped 
into  a  walk,  she  murmured: 

"  You  seem  changed  —  different." 

"Changed?     I?" 


170      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  Somehow  I  get  that  impression " 

"  Not  at  all.     No;  I  assure  you." 

The  windows  began  to  rattle  again,  and  again  they 
were  silenced  by  the  deafening  clatter.  The  country 
came  into  sight  —  a  valley  through  which  a  river  flowed. 

The  driver  began  to  extol  the  view.  They  got  out 
of  the  cab  and,  leaning  against  the  parapet  of  a  bridge, 
looked  at  the  prospect.  They  were  alone.  He  said, 
awkwardly: 

"Don't  be  displeased  if  I  am  —  if  I  appear  —  sad. 
The  emotion  of  seeing  you  after  so  many  events  —  the 
brain-fag " 

"I  don't  blame  you;  I  understand.  I  am  also  upset 
and  very  much  troubled.  Tomorrow " 

"  Tomorrow  I  shall  go  back." 

"Tomorrow?  Why?  I  thought  that  you  had  taken 
seven  days'  leave." 

He  felt  embarrassed  in  his  lie. 

"  I  couldn't  get  that  much.     Some  other  time " 

"  Some  other  time?  Perhaps  we  ought  never  to  meet 
again." 

He  protested.  But  so  unconvincingly  that  he  stopped 
short,  realizing  how  insincere  his  words  must  sound. 
Their  hands  dropped  apart,  without  either  seeming  to 
notice  it.  A  little  puff  of  wind  blew  the  crepe  veil  on 
the  officer's  shoulder.  He  removed  it  and  said  in  a  low 
voice: 


THE  RENDEZVOUS  171 

"  I  am  lying.  You  are  right  about  it.  I  am  no  longer 
the  same.  That  is  neither  my  fault  nor  yours.  When  I 
went  away  I  had  only  you  in  my  heart,  and  I  still  have 
only  you.  But  something  has  happened  —  the  death 
of  your  husband.  That  death  upset  my  thoughts  and 
my  plans  —  upset  them  altogether.  If  I  had  learned 
of  it  by  chance,  perhaps  I  should  have  seen  in  it  only  the 
release  it  brought  to  you  and  me.  But  I  was  there  when 
he  fell. 

"As  he  lay  on  the  ground  he  called  out  to  the  men: 
'Don't  bother  about  me;  it  is  nothing.  I  shall  rejoin 
you.' 

"  He  dragged  himself  as  far  as  the  captured  trench, 
in  order  to  encourage  them  to  hold  it  and  to  see  how  they 
installed  themselves  in  it.  He  talked  to  them  with  a  gen- 
tleness and  a  clearness  which  were  remarkable.  To  the 
sergeant,  who  held  him,  propped  up,  he  said :  '  You  will 
cite  this  evening  such  a  one,  and  such  a  one  and  such  a 
one,  who  have  all  fought  well.  You  will  cancel  the  or- 
der I  made  yesterday  for  the  punishment  of  the  trum- 
peter.' 

"  Then  he  had  the  roll  called.  When  the  list  was  fin- 
ished, he  said:  '  I  am  happy;  it  has  not  cost  us  too  dear.' 

"With  that  he  closed  his  eyes.  I  have  seen  others 
fall  —  others  who  were  my  friends.  Never  have  I  felt 
what  I  felt  at  that  moment. 

"  Since  then,  when  I  wish  to  think  of  our  past  happi- 


172      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

ness,  of  your  saddened  life,  of  your  sufferings,  of  the 
recompense  which  I  have  promised  you  and  which  you 
so  richly  deserve,  I  cannot  —  I  cannot.  Something  in 
me  effaces  all  those  ideas.  He  died  too  well." 

She  bowed  her  head.     The  driver  rejoined  them. 

"Without  wishing  to  be  officious,  Madame  and  Mon- 
sieur, you  ought  not  to  stay  here  any  longer.  When  the 
sun  sets  the  chill  here  is  very  treacherous." 

And,  as  they  got  into  the  cab  again,  he  added: 

"  See,  madame  already  shivers." 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CHURCH  BELL 
ANONYMOUS 

TFrHEN  the  9th  Artillery  entered  Grand-Bourg,  fol- 
VV  lowing  a  successful  advance  by  the  Chasseurs 
Alpins,  there  was  a  general  exclamation  of  distress  at 
the  sight  of  the  wreck  and  ruin  which  had  been  wrought 
in  the  ancient  village. 

Silence  and  death  hovered  over  a  shapeless  mass  of 
rubbish.  Only  a  few  half  demolished  houses  remained. 
The  church,  its  interior  wrecked  by  the  bombardment, 
exposed  to  the  village  square  a  gaping  hole,  through 
which  one  could  see  in  the  shadowy  background  the  half- 
shattered  glass-work  of  the  altar.  But  no  one  ventured 
inside  the  building;  for  its  clock  tower  made  a  tempting 
mark  and  it  was  really  a  miracle  that  the  enemy's  shells 
had  not  yet  razed  it. 

"  Well,  my  friend,"  the  poilus  confided  to  one  another, 
"for  a  frolicsome  fellow  this  place  certainly  lacks  at- 
tractions." 

"  It  lacks  women,"  added  the  fault-finders. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  of  the  1,000  inhabitants  of  the 
village  only  a  few  peasants  had  stayed  behind  —  the 
obdurate  few  who  could  not  bring  themselves  under  any 
173 


174      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

circumstances  to  abandon  their  cherished  parcels  of 
ground.  And  it  would  have  been  easier  to  find  a  gold 
louis  in  the  ruins  than  to  run  across  a  pretty  girl  in  the 
deserted  streets. 

So  when  the  comrades  of  Quartermaster  Pierre 
Schwartz  saw  him  in  the  company  of  a  young  girl  there 
was  a  general  buzz  of  surprise. 

"Lucky  fellow!  You  certainly  have  the  knack  of 
striking  pay  dirt!  " 

"  But  where  on  earth  did  you  run  across  her?  " 

"  Listen !  I  put  myself  down  for  her  sister,  if  she  has 
one." 

The  wits  all  turned  their  batteries  on  Schwartz.  He 
let  them  talk.  Then,  little  by  little,  he  confessed  his  ad- 
venture. 

He  was  born  in  Petit-Bourg,  a  village  about  three  kilo- 
metres from  Grand-Bourg.  He  had  known  Fanchette, 
his  good  friend,  since  her  infancy.  As  children  they 
had  played  together  and  gone  to  the  same  school.  As 
soon  as  he  had  arrived  here  his  first  thought  was  to  go 
and  look  for  her.  He  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  find 
her,  and  now  his  only  idea  was  to  marry  her,  after  the 
war,  and  cultivate,  with  her  aid,  the  little  farm  which 
he  had  inherited  from  his  parents. 

From  that  day  the  love  affair  of  the  sub-officer  was  ac- 
cepted as  something  entirely  proper  and  natural,  and  the 
chiefs  shut  their  eyes  when,  in  the  evenings,  Pierre  went 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CHURCH  BELL    175 

off  to  join  Fanchette  in  the  square  in  front  of  the  village 
church. 

That  evening  there  was  snow  in  the  air  and  the  falling 
flakes  covered  the  ground  with  a  light  ermine  mantle. 
A  silence,  broken  only  by  the  sharp  whistling  of  the 
wind,  filled  the  earth  and  the  sky. 

"  A  fine  night  for  bandits  —  not  excluding  the  Boches," 
the  poilus  declared. 

When  they  saw  Pierre  Schwartz  slip  out  to  go  meet 
his  fiancee,  they  said,  more  in  pity  than  in  envy: 

"  Must  he  get  frost  bitten  for  her?  " 

And  the  sceptics  added: 

"  It  is  a  sure  thing  that  she  will  never  be  there." 

But  they  deceived  themselves.  Fanchette  was  there, 
in  the  doorway  of  the  church,  more  nervous  than  was 
usual  with  her.  When  she  saw  Pierre  her  eyes  spar- 
kled. 

"  Is  it  you,  Pierre?  " 

"Yes,  it  is  I.     What  miserable  weather!  " 

"  Don't  say  that;  it  is  just  the  kind  of  weather  we  need." 

"  What?     Has  it  been  decided?  " 

"Yes;  for  tonight.  See,  here  is  the  package  of  rock- 
ets. Have  you  the  caps?  " 

"  Then  it  is  all  in  dead  earnest?  " 

"  Certainly.  I  have  just  seen  Captain  Fenshexer.  He 
told  me  that  he  counts  on  you  to  direct  his  attack." 

"  I  understand.     I'll  climb  up  the  tower." 


176      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

He  gave  a  last  kiss  to  his  fiancee,  who  conducted  him 
to  the  foot  of  his  chosen  observatory. 

Up  there  the  vast  plain,  like  a  white  winding  sheet, 
stretched  away  below  him.  His  glance,  familiarized  to 
this  country,  scanned  the  horizon  without  difficulty.  No 
patrol  was  crawling  behind  the  bushes.  Down  below,  at 
1,500  metres,  he  made  out  the  Boche  trenches,  the  line  of 
which  as  traced  in  the  snow  in  an  almost  imperceptible 
undulation.  Still  further  away  the  enemy's  artillery, 
concealed  in  a  little  wood,  was  ready  to  fire  at  the  first 
signal. 

That  signal  he,  Pierre  Schwartz,  under-officer  in  the 
French  army,  was  expected  to  give.  By  what  succession 
of  false  steps  had  he,  heretofore  an  honest  man,  arrived 
at  the  point  of  committing  treason?  He  could  hardly 
have  told.  It  was  Fanchette  who  drew  him  on.  But  he 
had  permitted  himself,  almost  without  a  protest,  to  be 
led  astray. 

He  had  lied  to  his  comrades  when  he  said  that  he  had 
known  her  since  childhood.  She  had  existed  for  him 
only  since  the  accursed  day  when  he  had  met  her  after 
revisiting  Petit-Bourg.  And  at  once  she  had  swept  him 
off  his  feet,  with  her  great  eyes  flashing  with  sorceries. 
Undoubtedly  they  were  engaged.  But  in  order  to  buy  the 
little  farm  which  Fanchette  coveted,  money  was  needed; 
and  both  of  them  were  poor.  It  was  then  that  she  had 
promised  him  the  necessary  cash  if  he  would  agree  to 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CHURCH  BELL    177 

set  off,  some  evening,  from  the  top  of  the  church  tower, 
rockets  bursting  in  the  direction  of  the  French  batteries. 
It  would  be  a  matter  of  only  a  few  minutes,  and  nobody 
but  themselves  would  know  anything  about  it. 

He  had  consented  to  that  shameful  bargain.  And 
now  the  hour  had  come  for  him  to  keep  his  word.  His 
heart  beat  violently,  his  hands  trembled  with  cold,  the 
sweat  stood  on  his  brow  and,  although  he  was  certain 
that  he  was  alone,  he  turned  his  head  to  see  if  any  one 
was  watching  him. 

But  no,  he  was  alone,  quite  alone;  and  he  had  given 
his  promise.  He  would  keep  his  wrrd,  for  he  knew  that 
Fanchette  would  be  his  only  on  that  condition.  With  a 
quick  movement  of  the  hand  he  broke  the  cord  with 
which  the  rockets  were  tied  together. 

But  suddenly  from  a  distance,  from  across  the  French 
border,  the  sound  of  a  church  bell  came  solemnly  through 
the  silence  of  the  night.  It  was  a  soft,  low  peal,  whose 
dying  notes  just  about  reached  him.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  flakes  of  snow  about  him  were  so  many  tiny  bells 
tintinnabulating  across  space.  That  bell  —  how  well  he 
knew  it!  It  was  the  church  bell  of  his  native  village, 
which,  this  evening,  faithful  to  the  tradition  of  centuries, 
proclaimed  the  fete  of  Candlemas  —  the  special  fete  of 
the  region.  Each  peal  resounded  in  his  heart  and  evoked 
from  the  past  the  souvenirs  of  his  childhood. 

It  was  that  bell  which  had  sounded  the  happiest  hours 


178      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

of  his  youth;  hours  of  innocence,  hours  of  joy  and  hours 
of  sorrow,  hours  of  hope  and  hours  of  love.  All  these 
hours,  for  ever  past,  seemed  now  to  rise  from  their  tomb 
and  to  come  to  dance  about  him  a  dance  of  memories. 
Absorbed  by  his  recollections,  he  abandoned  himself  to 
dreams,  forgetting  that  the  instant  had  come  to  launch 
the  signal  agreed  on  with  the  enemy. 

All  at  once  Fanchette,  running  up  the  tower  stairway, 
stood  beside  him. 

"  Well,  what  are  you  waiting  for?  Our  plan  is  work- 
ing wonderfully.  They  have  left  their  trenches.  See 
them  down  there,  a  hundred  yards  from  the  French  lines. 
Send  off  the  rockets!  " 

"Yes,  yes.  Wait  a  minute.  Here  goes.  But  no  — 
no.  After  all,  that  would  be  too  shameful !  " 

Quickly,  before  Fanchette  had  realized  what  he  was 
doing,  he  had  grasped  the  bell  rope,  and  with  all  his 
strength,  with  a  full  swing  of  his  arms,  he  sounded  an 
alarm. 

The  next  minutes  were  tragic.  Awakened  in  their 
trenches,  the  French  infantrymen  began  to  fire  their  ma- 
chine guns,  which,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  swept  the 
ranks  of  the  Germans  moving  forward  through  the  snow. 
The  French  batteries,  on  their  part,  by  a  barrage  fire, 
prevented  the  advance  of  German  reinforcements. 

But  the  bell  tower,  up  to  now  respected  by  the  enemy, 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CHURCH  BELL    179 

became  a  target  on  which  the  German  cannon  vented  their 
fury. 

Fanchette,  understanding  the  consequences  of  Pierre's 
action,  tried  to  flee.  But  he  held  her  fast. 

"No,  no;  you  shall  not  go!  It  was  you  who  guided 
me  here.  You  shall  die  with  me." 

There  was  a  fierce  struggle  between  the  lovers.  It 
lasted  several  minutes.  Then  the  bell  tower  crumbled 
with  a  frightful  crash,  crushing  under  its  weight  Fan- 
chette, the  temptress,  and  Pierre  Schwartz,  dead  in  order 
that  the  voice  of  the  church  bell  of  his  native  village 
should  remain  for  ever  a  French  voice. 


THE  SACRIFICE 
ANONYMOUS 

'  A  N  eagle,  Philip;  I  tell  you  it  is  an  eagle,  over 
-t"i_  there  above  the  Gothard.  He  planes  well,  that 
bird.  Ah!  when  shall  we  see  once  more  our  dear  pigeons 
in  France?  At  home  I  am  a  great  pigeon  fancier.  It 
is  my  principal  occupation.  And  you,  Philip,  what  is 
yours?  " 

"  I,  Jacques,  am  an  explorer." 
"  Not  a  commonplace  profession,  that !  " 
"And  an  ardent  one,  I  assure  you.     I  am  devoured 
with  impatience  to  explore  again  the  fever-ridden  jungles 
of  Africa,  where  the  rhinoceroses  range.     Ah,  the  deadly 
idleness  of  captivity!  " 

Both  sighed,  recalling  in  thought  the  bustling  morn- 
ing when  they  had  last  quitted  the  hangar  at  Belfort  in  a 
new  aeroplane  —  the  circles  in  the  pure,  icy  air,  the  keen 
joy  at  seeing  flee  before  their  French  wings  the  wings  of  a 
prudent  German  Taube.  Then,  suddenly,  the  fog,  be- 
wilderment, lost  bearings,  a  mistaken  descent  in  Swiss 
territory,  internment,  captivity,  their  dreams  of  fame 
and  heroism  shattered.  Since  then  months  and  months 
dragging  wearily  along  in  a  Swiss  fortress,  where  they 
180 


THE  SACRIFICE  181 

were  esteemed  and  hospitably  treated  —  yet  carefully 
watched. 

"  I  suppose  you  hardly  ever  think  of  such  a  thing  as 
making  a  home  and  having  a  family?  "  asked  Jacques, 
the  observer,  of  Philip,  the  pilot. 

"  On  the  contrary.  When  one  risks  his  life  he  ought 
to  feel  that  there  is  another  life  behind  him  which  will 
continue  the  furrow.  I  want  to  have  children  and  a 
hearthstone  to  which  to  come  to  rest  myself  between  my 
exploring  expeditions." 

"  But  under  such  conditions  it  ought  to  be  difficult  to 
find  a  wife." 

"  Don?t  worry;  I  have  found  her,"  answered  Philip, 
smiling. 

A  ripple  of  sweetness  passed  over  his  hard,  adventur- 
ous face  —  the  face  of  a  condottiere.  In  imagination  he 
saw  the  pure  and  tranquil  silhouette  of  Claire,  his  fian- 
cee, the  little  friend  of  his  boyhood,  with  her  grave  eyes 
and  her  almond  complexion. 

That  young  girl,  devoted  and  very  straight-forward, 
satisfied  the  need  which  Philip  had  of  a  confidante. 
Then,  when  he  travelled  in  the  rough  African  country, 
he  would  be  able  to  preserve  the  pure  flame  of  his  hearth- 
stone. He  could  always,  without  suspicion,  kiss  her 
smooth  brow  and  confide  to  her  little,  rosy  ear  his  proj- 
ects for  still  greater  discoveries. 

He  jumped  up  suddenly,  for  an  attendant  appeared, 


182      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

bringing  letters  for  the  two  prisoners.  Each  seized  his 
own  and  ensconced  himself  in  an  easy  chair.  Philip, 
overjoyed,  recognized  the  handwriting  of  his  fiancee. 

He  opened  the  missive  with  a  leisurely  sense  of  enjoy- 
ment, anticipating  the  pleasure  which  would  come  to 
him  from  those  lines  —  the  simple  recital  of  a  nurse  oc- 
cupied for  eighteen  months  at  the  bedsides  of  the 
wounded. 

But  all  of  a  sudden  a  certain  disorder  in  the  customary 
sober  arrangement  of  the  lines  struck  him,  and  surprised, 
keenly  attentive,  he  read  on: 

"  Dear  Philip :  If  you  were  here  I  should  know  how 
to  tell  you  what  embarrasses  me.  But  how  shall  I  write 
it?  Let  me  say,  first  of  all,  that  my  life  belongs  to  you 

—  and  all  my  love.     So  you  will  counsel  me,  will  you 
not,  since  you  are  my  strength? 

"  Recently  they  brought  into  our  hospital  Pierre  Gran- 
val,  the  well  known  aviator,  who  in  the  course  of  his 
fourteenth  fight  with  the  German  airmen  was  gravely 
wounded.  Very  gravely,  alas!  He  scarcely  could  tell 
what  was  happening  when  they  pinned  on  his  breast  the 
Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

"  Since  then  we  have  cared  for  his  poor,  damaged  eyes. 
For  a  long  time  we  believed  that  we  could  save  his  sight. 
But  at  last  a  day  came  when  his  vision  was  extinguished 

—  when  he  knew  that  he  would  be  totally  blind. 


THE  SACRIFICE  183 

"  The  nurses  here  have  cared  with  the  tenderest  devo- 
tion for  this  young  hero,  so  harshly  penalized  both  in 
the  present  and  in  the  future.  He  saw  the  most  attrac- 
tive among  us,  all  bending  over  him,  before  he  became 
blind.  How  was  it  that  he  noticed  me,  more  than  the 
others? 

"  Why  me,  who  felt  for  him  nothing  but  pity?  Why 
did  I  inspire  in  him  an  attachment  which  I  was  not  will- 
ing to  return? 

"  I  swear  to  you,  Philip,  when  Pierre  declared  his  love 
for  me,  however  much  I  regretted  rejecting  him,  I  did  it 
without  hesitation.  I  changed  my  assignment.  He  no 
longer  heard  my  voice  or  my  step.  I  hoped  he  would 
forget  me. 

"  But  one  day  he  wished  to  go  to  find  me  in  the  hall 
on  the  floor  below,  where  I  then  was.  His  strength 
failed  him.  He  fell  on  the  stone  steps  and  crushed  his 
head  badly.  We  thought  he  was  not  going  to  survive. 
Philip,  there  is  not  a  woman  who  would  not  have  wept 
to  be  the  cause  of  the  despair  and  death  of  this  unfortu- 
nate man.  In  return  for  the  life  which  he  offered  his 
country,  should  he  find  only  indifference  on  the  part  of 
her  for  whom  he  cared?  And  what  was  I  to  do,  when, 
dying,  he  implored  me  not  to  reject  his  love? 

"  I  have  been  a  woman,  weak  or  over-sympathetic,  as 
you  wish.  I  lied  to  him  out  of  pity.  I  said  to  him  that 
I  returned  his  feeling,  that  I  would  marry  him,  as  he 


184      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

had  entreated  me  to  do.  To  a  dying  person  why  refuse 
that  supreme  joy?  Death  was  to  efface  all. 

"  But  he  has  survived.  Today  he  is  almost  recovered 
from  his  last  wound.  Blind,  he  has  faith  in  me  as  in  his 
guiding  star.  I  am  the  only  reason  for  his  wishing  to 
live.  In  desperation  I  call  to  you. 

"  Philip,  it  is  you,  so  brave  —  you  who  have  not  yet 
had  time  to  make  yourself  illustrious  —  whom  I  love. 
My  heart  is  in  accord  with  my  pledge.  It  is  you  alone 
who  are  able  to  inspire  my  soul. 

"  Philip,  what  shall  I  do?  " 

Philip  rose  hastily  from  his  chair.  He  felt  stifled, 
suffocated,  and  went  out  to  the  parapet  which  ran  along 
the  cliff  of  the  fortress.  He  turned  his  head  from  side 
to  side,  sniffing  the  air  of  the  nearby  glaciers.  He  was 
stupefied,  indignant,  outraged  in  his  tenderest  sentiments. 

Was  it  Claire  who  wrote  thus?  Claire  the  fiancee  of 
another,  Claire  demanding  back  her  promise  to  him  in 
order  to  marry  Granval?  No,  perhaps  she  was  only, 
as  she  said,  the  victim  of  a  sort  of  feminine  nervosity  — 
of  her  too  ready  pity  for  any  one  who  suffered.  He 
would  admit  that  she  had  been  merely  imprudent.  But 
how  could  she  hesitate  between  him,  her  fiance  for  years, 
and  "  this  person  "? 

He  felt  a  lump  of  wrath  gathering  in  his  throat.  In- 
stinctively his  hands  stiffened,  as  if  he  were  going  to 


THE  SACRIFICE  185 

strangle  his  rival.  Then,  suddenly,  he  had  a  feeling  of 
reaction.  Something  like  an  involuntary  sense  of 
shame  assailed  him. 

"  This  person !  "  Could  he  forget  that  "  this  person  " 
was  Pierre  Granval,  whose  boundless  audacity,  whose 
supple  and  perfect  skill  he  had  so  often  admired  and 
envied  —  that  Pierre  over  whom  he  had  wept  in  spite  of 
the  ardour  of  his  rivalry?  Yes,  he  had  shed  tears  of  un- 
feigned grief,  true  fraternal  tears,  when  he  read  in  the 
newspapers  that  this  young,  unvanquished  eagle  had  been 
hopelessly  disabled.  And  it  was  he,  a  mutilated  hero, 
whom  he  had  today  called  "  this  person  "! 

So  Pierre  was  blind.  The  greatest  of  afflictions,  mused 
Philip,  was  all  that  Fate  had  had  to  offer  this  young  man 
in  recompense  for  his  high  services. 

Blind!  And  he  held  out  his  poor,  trembling  hand 
toward  a  woman  —  the  only  one  who  did  not  love  him  — 
the  only  one  who  could  not  love  him.  She  seemed  will- 
ing, however,  to  devote  her  life  to  him. 

Once  more  Philip  gave  a  start.  No,  he  could  not  con- 
sent to  that  unreasonable  sacrifice.  He  could  not  say 
to  Claire,  the  chosen  partner  of  his  life:  "  Be  the  com- 
panion of  that  unfortunate  man!  "  That  would  be  ab- 
surd. After  all,  Pierre  had  only  run  the  chances  of 
war. 

But  he,  Philip,  was  he  running  the  frightful  risk  of 
becoming  blind?  He  was  here,  in  the  shelter  of  these 


186      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

strong  walls,  breathing  the  tonic  air  of  the  icy  mountain 
peaks,  making  his  muscles  flexible  for  future  use,  while 
others  were  going  through  agonies  on  the  field  of  battle. 

He  shook  his  head,  wishing  to  chase  away  an  impor- 
tunate thought  which  kept  gathering  strength  in  spite 
of  him.  Turning,  he  saw  before  him  the  massive  moun- 
tain ridges,  heaped  up,  majestic,  wearing  like  diadems 
their  coldly  glittering,  bluish-tinted  glaciers. 

The  clarity  of  their  lines,  the  pure  nudity  of  the 
snows  which  lay  on  their  summits  struck  him  with  all 
the  force  of  a  revelation.  Under  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun  the  whole  range  stood  out,  severe,  commanding,  in- 
domitable. 

He  felt,  in  spite  of  himself,  its  imperious  grandeur.  A 
mute  cry  of  valour,  of  intrepidity,  came  from  those 
jagged  peaks.  The  weakness  of  the  flesh,  the  tender 
shrinkings  of  the  heart,  counted  for  nothing  in  the  face 
of  those  eternal  rocks,  which  man  could  not  scale  with- 
out torn  and  bleeding  hands.  An  image  of  lofty  virtue 
rose  out  of  those  snows. 

All-powerful  Nature  lifted  the  soul  of  Philip  up  to  its 
own  height,  and  the  young  man  could  not  restrain  him- 
self from  evoking  in  his  imagination  two  men,  equally 
bold,  brave  and  young,  of  whom  one  marched  on  toward 
life,  his  hands  open  to  all  its  realizations,  the  future 
ahead  of  him,  love  beside  him,  while  the  other,  without 


THE  SACRIFICE  187 

a  future  and  without  love,  remained  on  the  roadway,  mo- 
tionless and  silent. 

Then,  brusquely,  he  understood  that  an  inescapable 
duty  had  imposed  itself  on  him,  just  as  suffering  and 
death  impose  themselves  inescapably  on  all  of  us. 
Without  parleying,  without  hesitation,  he  re-entered  his 
room,  threw  himself  in  a  seat  at  his  table  and  began  to 
write  feverishly: 

"  Claire,  it  is  not  for  me,  who,  protected  in  the  pres- 
ent, have  all  of  life  ahead  of  me,  to  despoil  my  brother 
martyr;  and  whatever  pangs  I  may  experience " 

Surely  in  time  of  peace  this  man  would  not  have  acted 
thus.  But  war  justifies  all  heroic  madnesses.  Though 
making  some  men  brutes,  it  raises  many,  many  others  of 
nobler  mould  to  summits  of  unselfishness  and  super- 
manhood. 


A  SLACKER  WITH  A  SOUL 
ANONYMOUS 

Marseilles  express  had  arrived  in  the  station. 
Franchise  hastened  along  the  platform,  distancing 
her  chaperon.  She  caught  sight  of  Jean,  who  was  step- 
ping off  the  train.  He  looked  pale  and  delicate  and  was 
carrying  a  heavy  valise.  She  ran  toward  him.  They 
clasped  hands. 

"  Why  don't  you  kiss  each  other?  "  exclaimed  Fran- 
goise's  attendant,  who  had  joined  them. 

A  little  awkwardly  he  kissed  the  young  girl's  fore- 
head, without  a  word.  It  was  she  who  murmured: 

"My  darling  fiance!" 

They  were  hurried  along  by  the  crowd. 

Striking  in  appearance,  with  her  fresh  colour,  her 
corsage  bouquet  of  roses,  her  springy  step,  Franchise 
attracted  all  eyes.  She  demanded  of  her  companion  a 
thousand  details  of  his  voyage.  For  his  part  he  an- 
swered in  an  almost  stifled  voice.  Yes,  everything 
had  gone  very  smoothly.  And  he  cast  sidelong 
glances  at  her,  with  an  air  at  once  admiring  and 
troubled. 

The  chaperon  went  to  look  after  the  baggage. 


A  SLACKER  WITH  A  SOUL         189 

"  Sit  on  a  bench  and  wait  for  me,"  she  ordered. 

They  seated  themselves  side  by  side.  But  a  certain 
sense  of  embarrassment  separated  them. 

"  My  dear  Jean,"  she  asked,  "  do  you  still  have  those 
torturing  thoughts?  " 

They  looked  at  each  other.  What  would  drive  that 
shadow  away?  It  was  her  smile  that  made  the  young 
man's  face  lighten.  He  murmured: 

"  To  see  you  —  that  has  already  done  me  so  much 
good." 

Silent  for  some  minutes,  they  reviewed  their  long 
separation.  Engaged  in  July  of  1914  and  expecting  to 
be  married  the  following  October,  more  than  thirty 
months  of  torment  had  intervened.  Jean  has  been 
nominated  professor  of  the  lycee  at  Constantino,  Tunis. 
Their  letters  remained  the  only  link  between  them. 

Exempted  for  good,  Jean  still  made  every  effort  to  get 
into  the  army.  He  was  refused  again  and  again.  How 
many  examinations  he  had  passed!  Accepted  finally 
into  the  auxiliary  force,  a  bad  attack  of  bronchitis  meant 
for  him  a  definite  retirement  from  military  service. 

Oh!  The  heart-rending  letters  that  Frangoise  had  re- 
ceived from  him  since  then!  This  nervous,  impression- 
able youth  had  vibrated  to  the  appeal  of  a  country  in 
arms.  He  had  burned  to  do  his  part  down  there  among 
the  glorious  youth  of  France.  But  his  wish  had  been 
denied. 


190      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

He  suffered  a  humiliation  and  a  despair  which  time 
did  not  allay.  All  his  comrades  were  at  the  front.  That 
was  what  caused  him  the  keenest  pangs.  To  his  fiancee 
alone  he  confided  that,  not  being  able  to  write  letters 
without  shame  at  dating  them  from  a  point  so  far  distant 
from  the  scene  of  action,  he  had  dropped  all  other  cor- 
respondence. She  assumed  a  bantering  attitude  at  first. 
She  refused  to  take  his  scruples  seriously.  That  was  the 
worst  thing  she  could  do.  Presently  he  avowed  to  her 
that  he  doubted  whether  he  would  have  the  courage  to 
show  himself  again  in  her  house.  She  being  the  daugh- 
ter of  an  officer,  and  her  three  brothers  having  gone  to 
the  war  (one  of  them  fallen  in  the  first  campaign  and 
the  other  two  continually  exposed)  he  felt  himself  un- 
worthy to  enter  her  family.  So  he  offered  to  release 
her  from  her  promise,  whatever  suffering  that  release 
might  cost  him. 

Her  answer  came,  prompt  and  comforting.  Fran- 
Qoise  told  him  that  she  appreciated  his  delicacy  of  feel- 
ing, and  his  regrets,  which  she  shared  with  him.  But 
to  condemn  him,  that  would  be  foolish.  He  a  slacker? 
Nothing  of  the  kind.  One  must  distinguish  between 
those  who  could  not  go  and  those  who  didn't  want  to  go. 
In  conclusion,  she  asked  him  (and  her  invitation  was 
both  urgent  and  affectionate)  to  cross  the  Mediterranean 
when  his  next  vacation  came.  They  would  see  each 
other;  they  would  come  to  a  clearer  understanding. 


A  SLACKER  WITH  A  SOUL         191 

So  he  had  come. 

"  The  slacker,  the  slacker  at  the  rear.  It  is  he  who 
makes  you  persecute  yourself,"  she  scolded  him  gently. 
"Forget  him!" 

In  a  low  voice  he  thanked  her,  pressing  her  hands. 
But  he  began  again  to  tell  her  of  his  inquietudes  —  of 
the  sense  of  shame  which  always  pursued  him.  He 
questioned  whether  he  could  risk  making  some  visits  dur- 
ing his  stay  in  Paris,  for  fear  of  being  indifferently  re- 
ceived. Might  it  not  happen  that  women  in  the  street 
would  point  their  fingers  at  him?  Or  might  they  not 
abuse  him,  a  civilian  of  his  age  wearing  neither  a  rib- 
bon nor  a  brassard?  And  they  would  be  right!  A  use- 
less Frenchman!  A  true  parasite  on  the  nation! 

Jean  seemed  to  shrink  and  shrivel,  and  his  look  indi- 
cated fear  of  the  mob  or  of  robust  poilus  shouldering 
him  off,  to  the  manifest  delight  of  the  public. 

"  Oh,  be  quiet!  "  repeated  Franchise. 

She  tried  to  deny,  for  his  sake,  that  public  opinion  was 
unjust  and  cruel  to  that  extent.  But  she  did  not  con- 
vince him. 

The  trunks  were  identified  and  they  were  ready  to 
leave  the  station.  Nonnou,  always  devoted,  volunteered 
to  see  the  baggage  safe  home.  They  two,  who  had  a 
detour  to  make  (he  was  going  first  to  greet  his  mother), 
decided  to  take  the  metro. 

Even  in  the  first  class  sections  seats  were  scarce  at 


192      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

this  hour.  They  boarded  the  train  in  a  crush  and  could 
find  no  places.  They  were  even  separated.  Jean  found 
himself  crowded  against  a  zouave  who  wore  a  military 
medal.  He  had  his  arm  in  a  sling  and  his  face  encircled 
with  bandages.  Thrown  against  him  by  a  sudden  jerk 
of  the  car,  Jean  muttered  some  excuses,  which  the  zouave 
answered  only  with  a  deep  growl. 

Stations  succeeded  one  another.  Passengers  alighted. 
There  was  a  seat  free.  Some  one  motioned  to  the 
wounded  man.  Jean  made  way  for  the  other  to  pass. 
But  in  doing  so  he  dropped  his  cane,  over  which  the 
zouave  stumbled.  A  general  murmur  of  disapprobation 
arose.  The  zouave  sank  heavily  into  the  seat. 

The  compartment  gradually  emptied.  Frangoise,  in 
her  turn,  was  able  to  get  a  place  beside  the  wounded  man. 
Jean  propped  himself  against  a  door,  fatigued  by  his 
long  trip.  Another  vacant  seat.  He  looked  around  to 
see  if  there  was  not  a  poilu,  a  woman  or  an  old  man  to 
whom  to  offer  it.  There  was  none.  Discreetly  he 
slipped  into  it. 

All  the  interest  of  the  passengers  centred  in  the 
wounded  soldier.  A  neighbour  ventured  to  engage  him 
in  conversation.  And  he,  in  a  hoarse  voice,  told  about 
his  double  wound  —  about  his  arm,  which  he  could  no 
longer  use,  and  his  cheek,  shattered  by  a  bullet. 

Jean  lowered  his  eyes.     He  thought,  during  the  re- 


A  SLACKER  WITH  A  SOUL         193 

cital,  that  he  discerned  something  in  the  attitude  of  the 
listeners  which  was  intended  as  a  reproach  to  him  —  even 
as  a  challenge.  Frangoise,  separated  from  him,  vainly 
attempted  to  reassure  him  by  her  smiles.  Now  the  poilu 
grew  more  excited.  He  talked  of  the  risks  which  he  had 
run,  of  the  duty  to  his  country  which  he  had  fulfilled. 
He  used  one  bitter  phrase:  Ah,  if  all  the  rest  had  only 
done  what  he  had  done!  Jean  felt  himself  crushed. 

The  zouave  stopped  talking.  Presently,  shifting  in  his 
seat,  he  manifested  signs  of  impatience.  An  idea 
gripped  Jean.  His  own  valise  had  been  slipped  by 
Frangoise  under  the  seat.  Maybe  it  inconvenienced  the 
man?  He  lifted  his  eyes.  The  other  glared  at  him  in- 
solently. Apparently  an  outburst  was  imminent.  He 
grew  red.  What  should  he  answer  if  attacked?  His 
tongue  already  froze  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth. 

Jean  shuddered.     It  was  coming. 

The  zouave  stood  up  and  came  toward  him.  He  al- 
ready addressed  him: 

"Monsieur!  " 

The  heavy  brows  of  the  man,  exposed  under  his  band- 
age, exaggerated  the  menacing  expression  of  his  face. 
The  scandal  which  Jean  had  dreaded  so  much  was  about 
to  be  precipitated.  Mon  Dieu,  how  he  regretted  having 
made  his  voyage  to  Paris!  How  he  wished  himself 
buried  deep  under  the  earth! 


194      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

And  the  poilu,  bending  over  him,  fairly  shouted  at 
him: 

"  In  order  to  accommodate  the  little  lady,  I  will  change 
places  with  you,  if  you  wish!  " 


THE  EVOCATION 

ANONYMOUS 

THE  chateau,  which  we  reached  toward  evening,  carry- 
ing with  us  our  friend  Urbain,  who  had  a  bullet 
wound  in  his  breast,  had  suffered  but  little  from  the 
battle.  Some  shells  had  smashed  the  roofs  and  damaged 
the  portico  —  the  result  of  a  short  but  violent  encounter 
in  the  park  and  the  adjoining  woods.  Our  zouaves  had 
driven  out  of  the  building  the  staff  of  a  German  division. 
But  the  Bavarians,  the  night  before,  had  hastily  removed 
all  the  rich  and  costly  furniture.  We  wandered  through 
the  empty  rooms,  and  finally  I  gave  orders  to  set  up  the 
stretcher  in  a  salon  on  the  first  floor. 

It  was  a  vast  salon,  done  in  white,  with  three  tall  win- 
dows, whose  window  panes  were  broken,  but  whose  in- 
side shutters  could  be  closed  to  keep  out  the  cool  air  of 
the  night.  Bullets  had  shattered,  here  and  there,  the 
fine  Louis  XIV  mouldings  and  bits  of  plaster  littered  the 
floor.  Nevertheless,  the  proportions  of  the  room,  of 
its  chimney  piece  and  of  all  its  ornamental  details  were 
so  just  and  harmonious  and  the  whiteness  was  of  so  soft 
an  ivory  shade  that  one  felt  in  it  a  sensation  of  tran- 
195 


196      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

quillity,  especially  after  escaping  into  it  from  the  storm 
and  tumult  without. 

In  the  middle  of  the  room  —  the  single  piece  of  furni- 
ture left  intact  by  some  miracle  —  stood  a  piano,  a  grand 
piano,  isolated  in  this  white  silence  like  a  huge  sarcoph- 
agus in  ebony.  The  brutes  had  neither  carried  it  away 
nor  demolished  it.  Seeing  it,  my  heart  jumped.  I 
thought  of  those  coffins  draped  in  black  which  are  left 
in  the  middle  of  a  room  before  the  body  is  to  be  taken 
away,  and  I  cast  a  strange  glance  at  poor  Lieutenant 
Urbain,  my  brother  in  arms,  whom  our  comrades  had 
deposited  in  a  corner,  arranging  his  improvised  couch  by 
the  light  of  a  dull  lantern.  He  was  livid.  His  shirt 
was  stained  with  blood.  And  I  felt  myself  assailed  by 
a  nameless  fear  as  I  turned  my  eyes  from  the  wounded 
man  to  the  huge  instrument  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
which  looked  for  all  the  world  like  a  gloomy,  glittering 
sepulchre. 

We  seated  ourselves  at  Urbain 's  bedside  —  Lieutenant 
Fleury  and  myself  —  resolved  to  await  the  arrival  of  the 
surgeon-major.  Fleury  was  a  big  fellow,  genial  and  gay. 
In  civil  life  he  was  a  composer  and  a  pianist  of  high  repu- 
tation. At  Chateau  Thierry,  before  the  departure  of  our 
regiment,  he  delighted  our  circle  by  playing  the  Allied 
national  hymns  and  all  the  other  martial  and  patriotic 
airs  which  were  demanded.  For  those  who  loved  music 
he  played  the  classics.  But  this  evening  he  was  as  sad 


THE  EVOCATION  197 

as  I  was,  and  as  harassed  and  weary;  and  he  walked  past 
the  big  piano  with  a  look  of  indifference. 

The  major  finally  came,  examined  our  friend  at  length, 
and  took  off  and  replaced  the  bandages.  Then  he  shook 
his  head.  I  understood.  He  led  me  aside  and  told  me 
that  there  was  very  little  hope,  but  that  he  would  re- 
main with  us,  being  as  well  off  there  as  anywhere  else, 
since  his  next  tour  of  duty  at  the  hospital  in  the  park 
would  not  begin  until  daylight. 

We  were  then,  the  three  of  us,  in  that  vast  room,  all 
white  and  empty,  between  an  inert,  wounded  man  on  the 
one  side  and,  on  the  other,  that  huge,  black  mass,  whose 
presence  had  from  the  beginning  suggested  to  my  imag- 
ination something  fantastic  and  fatal.  The  lantern  was 
placed  on  one  of  the  corners  of  the  piano.  We  no  longer 
heard  any  noises  outside.  Even  the  sound  of  the  distant 
cannonading  had  died  away. 

A  certain  time  passed.  We  did  not  sleep,  but  we  re- 
mained rigid  and  stupefied.  Suddenly  we  heard  Urbain's 
voice  —  a  voice  transformed  and  softened,  which  seemed 
to  come  from  a  distance. 

"Are  you  there,  Fleury?  " 

We  were  startled.     Fleury  answered: 

"  Yes,  I  am  here  —  with  Fresnel  and  the  major.  What 
is  it?  " 

"  Fleury,"  said  Urbain,  "  listen !  I  wish  —  I  wish 
that  you  would  go  to  the  piano  and  play  something." 


198      TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

"  You  are  foolish,  my  dear  fellow,"  replied  Fleury, 
forcing  an  accent  of  gaiety.  "  You  need  to  get  some 
sleep.  I  will  play  you  all  the  music  you  want  when  you 
are  convalescent." 

"  I  shall  never  be  convalescent.  Listen  to  me !  And 
you  three,  all  of  you,  listen  to  me!  I  have  a  fiancee  at 
home,  in  Anjou.  Her  name  is  Fanny.  She  is  pretty, 
she  is  good,  she  is  very  intelligent.  She  lives  in  a  cha- 
teau like  this,  and  in  the  big,  white  salon  there  is  a  grand 
piano,  just  like  this  one.  She  plays  delightfully  on  sum- 
mer evenings.  There  are  three  or  four  of  us,  and  the 
light  is  dim.  Play  for  me,  Fleury!  I  shall  see  her.  I 
shall  be  again  in  her  house;  I  shall  be  with  her.  Play 
me  something  which  she  plays.  I  will  tell  you  what  to 
play.  Do  this  for  me.  You  have  always  been  oblig- 
ing. Do  it." 

We  shuddered.    The  major  murmured: 

"  You  may  play.    There  is  no  hope  for  him." 

Fleury  got  up  and  opened  the  piano,  and  Urbain  said 
to  him,  breathlessly: 

**  Thanks.  Come  and  shake  my  hand.  You  are  a  true 
friend.  Now  play  the  Chopin  etude  in  la  —  you  know 
it,  don't  you?  " 

And  in  the  oppressive  silence  of  this  chamber  of  agony 
began  the  strangest  and  most  sinister  concert  that  could 
be  imagined.  By  the  unsteady  light  of  the  lantern  I 
saw  Fleury's  face,  very  pale  and  grave.  He  played  as 


THE  EVOCATION  199 

if  he  were  at  prayer  —  as,  doubtless,  he  had  never  played 
before  in  all  his  life.  And  little  by  little  the  magic  of 
the  harmony  mastered  us.  We  forgot  everything  —  time, 
place,  reality,  death.  About  that  piano  we  were  friends 
assembled  for  an  intimate  reunion. 

When  the  artist  had  finished,  Urbain,  from  the  depths 
of  the  shadow,  spoke  again: 

"  I  see  her.  She  is  here  —  with  us.  Play  again.  She 
knows,  as  you  do,  Schumann's  '  Papillons.'  Don't  make 
a  protest,  Fleury.  Don't  tell  me  that  he  was  a  German. 
He  was  a  pure  and  sane  genius.  Let  me  hear  it  again,  as 
in  Anjou  on  those  summer  evenings,  before  I  die.  No, 
don't  tell  me  that  I  am  not  going  to  die.  I  know  it,  I 
feel  it.  Don't  tell  me  anything,  but  play " 

And  Fleury,  trembling,  played  Schumann's  **  Papil- 
lons." At  each  pause  in  the  immortal  suite  of  caprices 
we  turned  toward  our  friend.  He  passed  gently  into  a 
delirium.  We  heard  him  murmur:  "Thanks,  Fanny; 
thanks." 

And  the  force  of  suggestion  in  that  thought  was  such 
that  I  believed  that  I  saw  wander  by,  wrapped  in  a  sort 
of  penumbra,  the  white,  blonde  figure  of  a  young  girl. 
This  lasted  until  the  major,  who  was  watching,  bent  over 
the  couch,  turned  brusquely  around,  laid  his  hand  on 
the  shoulder  of  the  pianist,  who  was  still  playing,  and 
said  in  a  hoarse  voice: 

"  Stop !     He  cannot  hear  you  now." 


200       TALES  OF  WARTIME  FRANCE 

The  brilliant  arpeggio  broke  off  abruptly  in  painful 
silence.  Fleury  put  his  elbows  on  the  keyboard.  Over- 
come by  grief,  by  the  music  and  by  insomnia,  he  broke 
down  in  a  convulsion  of  sobs  and  tears. 


THE  END 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    nnn  n?4  571 


